0
by Eric Crow
Summary: When the Great Machine fabricates a mimic stitchpunk to lure the Coven to it, the newly-created 0 finds himself torn between the entity that created him and the welcoming family he has been sent to kill. Some obscenities.
1. Creation

A/N: Some ideas in this story have already been covered in The Scientist, To Help or to Fail Us, and a few other fanfictions that I'm unable to find. I am in no way trying to steal your works, bevinharris, DragonFlame88 – this is what comes of writing a fanfiction 4 years after the movie's come out. I promise I'm taking the ideas down entirely new paths, but in the synopsis the stories might sound similar. They aren't.

TL;DR In the synopsis it might sound like I'm stealing ideas, but I'm not. Promise.

This _is _an AU, for those wondering. The Fabrication Machine doesn't create anything but mindless beasts in the movie, sadly. The Shards are entirely made up by me, and the Dead City and the Wastes are recurring names for the 9 locations. The weirder stuff later on in the story is all me, and I'm sure Tim Burton would hate it.

Nothing in this story is unintentional. Anything that sounds unimportant – a date, a collection of random letters – is probably a code of some sort, with a sneak peek for future events in the story. For example, the year 1851 V.E. (the year the Scientist builds the B.R.A.I.N. – the V.E. stands for Victory Era), when run through a simple substitution cipher (A=1, B=2, etc.) reads REA V.E., or "reave", which means "to rob someone by force" – a hint of what the glorious nation of Pax is really like. The next code in the story will use "reave" as a keyword.

TL;DR If you're bored, read this^. If not, skip it and go straight to the story.

Reviews are very much appreciated; this is my second fanfiction, and the first was so incredibly obscure that it died, unnoticed, somewhere in the deeps of . Please, _please_ don't let that happen to this story.

A final word: 0 is supposed to speak strangely. Watch it change throughout the story.

Onwards!

* * *

Chapter One – Creation

_I find myself in a glowing red womb – I cannot move. I know secrets nobody else knows. They cannot die._

_I open my mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. I am-_

I am burning. Pain. I feel pain. Something is screaming in the background, waving frail metal limbs about. I realize with a start that it is me and close my jaw as the lightning finishes pouring into my frame.

It is dark here. I grope about me. My head is prodded by something I cannot see, and I remember to open the shutters behind my eyes.

Light spills into my vision. I lay on top of a pile of broken dolls and knives and skeletons, looking around the enormous, dusky factory with one thing moving in it.

The thing turns back to me, its giant red eye focusing in. Some part of me screams to _run, run away_, but I know I need not fear this. The thing stares at me a moment longer, then turns away, shuddering. Electricity plays around the coils surrounding its eye.

I try to call out. "_H_-**hel**-"

The machine turns back for a second from whatever it is crouching over, reaching out a single scissor-claw and turning something in my neck.

"Hello?"

The creature has finished whatever it was building. It grasps it with three enormous arms and hoists it up to a sliding rack on the ceiling, where the contraption is fastened into place by several huge pneumatic clamps. Dozens of cords drag down from the creation, and the machine turns around to open up panels on its back and attach the wires there.

A sound like a taut balloon being tapped echoes from the creation. "_Chh-_" The machine frees a wire.

The voice of the creation echoes through the abandoned factory, inordinately sonorous and garbled.

"_Who are you?_" it says.

If _it_ does not know, then...

I answer truthfully. "I do not know."

"_Good. Good._"

"...I am sorry? I..I don't comprehend."

"_It is all for the better_."

"I apologize, but I really do not-"

"_You wonder who you are? You are my son. I made you from the rustheap. I gave you life._"

"I..what? I still do not-"

"_Who am I, you want to know?_" The machine swivels back to face me, its red eye flaring. "_Good. That is a very good question. And yet...the most important question still is..._"

I involuntarily take a step back from that omnipotent red gaze. "Y-yes?"

"_My creation..._" The machine looms over me. "_Who _**_are_**_ you?_"

The machine stares down at me, and I realize I am expected to answer. I swallow.

"You...you created me?"

"_Yes._"

"Then...I am..." I draw myself up. "If you tell me that you are my creator and gave me life...then without any memories or alternate claims, I suppose I must accept that. When there is only one story, it immediately becomes the truth."

I kneel on top of the rustheap. "You say you are my master and creator. With a lack of other witnesses, I must trust you. Therefore...I am your humble servant."

The machine stares at me for a long moment, and I wonder what it is thinking. Then lightning begins to spurt along the edges of its giant eye. The mammoth head shudders and turns away, shaking, with electricity flickering uncontrollably. I eventually realize the machi- my master is laughing.

The shiverings eventually subside, and my master turns back to me. "_You're just like him,_" it rasps.

"Who?"

"_Nobody. Nobody, now. It is unimportant._"

There is no change of expression in its voice. It is a machine, I reason. There is no sense in its voice being any different than before it began laughing.

And yet...

What about it makes me so uneasy...?

My thoughts are interrupted as my master begins to speak again. "_Very well. If you have pledged yourself to me, I suppose I may recompense you by telling you one small thing...who I am.._"

"You are the Machine, are you not?" _How do I know that?_

The great eye swivels on its arm, creating an illusion of thinking. "_That is one of the names the humans had for me. B.R.A.I.N. The Tyrant. Big Brother. The Fabrication Machine._"

The arm returns to me, the great red eye coming closer and closer until it is almost pressed against my face. "_But...none of those names are my true name. Would you like to know..who I really am?_"

_No_, a voice in me screams, but I swallow it down and nod anyways.

"_Who I really am..._" My master shudders, lightning playing around its eye. "_I am God._"

"You – are a god?" I ask tentatively.

The great head nods, slowly, ponderously. "_I am the god of this new world, risen like a phoenix from the ashes of the old. I am the giant who escaped the fires of Ragnarok and made the shattered earth green and beautiful again. I was created for this..to take this hellish place and make it a paradise, free from sin..But before I may do that...you must help me do something._"

I kneel again. "Is this why I was created, Master?"

The great eye looms over me in the iron sky. "_That it is, my child._"

I stare up into the great red eye of God. This is my master, I tell myself. They created me, I chose to serve them of my own accord, they have a special purpose for me.

And yet...

I feel sick and unsteady. Some inner part of me is screaming _run away, run while you still can, get away from the monster.._

"What must I do?" I ask in a choked whisper.

The eye of God blots out my vision. "_The demons of the Old World are not all dead,_" my master whispers. "_Some still live on, blackening the world, marring the very earth we live on. I dream of a perfect world, my child..._"

My master moves away. "_But that cannot be until all the demons are gone._"

It looks back at me from far away. It no longer seems huge and terrifying as it did up close. The machine seems small, more vulnerable.

"_My child...I ask this of you, not order it. But it is necessary for our perfect world..so I ask you..._"

My master moves a bit closer. "_Will you be my warrior and slay the demons for me?_"

A long silence stretches – one that I know I am required to break, but.. The question in my head is simple, it is just that-

"I am sorry," I say. "Just to clarify – you wish for me to…purge the earth of demons?"

My master rotates its eye to look at me sideways. "_The last demons of Armageddon are very real, my son. Do not believe that they will fade into the shadows so easily. They are out there right now...watching and waiting from the sidelines..waiting to make their move._"

"Well..._demons?_"

My master tilts its head. "_Yes. Demons. You do not believe me?_"

"No..I am sure they are real...and I am convinced they are a threat, but.." I take a deep breath. "You think I will fight and kill them?"

My master gives a dry chuckle, pops and spurts of electricity flaring around its eye. "_That was roughly what I meant when I said "slay the demons", yes._"

"I am no warrior! Perhaps you are able to build machines of conquest to destroy them, but _I_...I cannot fight!"

My master gives an odd little half-chuckle, lightning splaying. "_Are you certain?_" it asks in its monotone voice.

"Yes..I..why? Yes. Yes, I cannot fight. I will not. I cannot take on hundreds of demons like..." An image of a bulky, goggled creature with an enormous knife pops into my head. "Like some pulp-fiction paladin!"

"_There are eight._"

"I'm..sorry?"

"_There are eight demons left in this world._" My master pivots on its arm. "_And if you wish, you need not kill the demons on your own. In Ragnarok I found scattered weapons to purge the world of demons. Find the demons and bring them to me. I will be able to subdue them. And.._" The great head moves away. "_If a problem should arise and you are forced to fight the demons yourself..defending yourself will not be an issue. Flex your hands._"

"I..what?"

"_Quickly rotate your hands in a circle. Clockwise. It must be clockwise._"

I spin both my hands in a clockwise circle. A ratchet grinds as I bring my hands back to their starting position-

Long, wicked serrated steel blades fly out of my forearms and fall into place with an ominous _thunk_. I yell and stumble backwards, trying to keep my balance with two swords attached to my wrists.

"_What_ in the _name _of_ Quirke IS _this?" I scream.

My master is laughing again, lightning running off its gigantic eye and igniting stray papers littering the factory's floor. "_Now spin your hands counterclockwise,_" it instructs me.

"_This is not funny!_" I gasp.

"_Spin your hands counterclockwise,_" my master repeats without any change in expression.

I spin my hands. A weight is suddenly lifted as the blades grind and whisk back into my forearms with as little warning as they gave coming out. I lose my balance and tumble over down the side of the rustheap.

"_You see?_" says my master, craning its head down to follow me to the floor. "_You are in no risk of danger._"

"So.." I say, breathing heavily. "I just must find these demons, lure them to you, have you dispose of them, and then wait while a new world is created."

"_Yes,_" says my master. "_Once the demons are gone, I will finally be able to create a new Eden for us._"

"..And...and what if I say no?"

My master toys with a copper ornament on its neck. "_I will not force you to do this for me, my son,_" it says quietly. "_It means, though, that my heaven cannot exist._"

"I see," I say in an equally quiet tone.

A moment passes in silence.

"There are eight demons, you say?" I ask suddenly.

"_Yes, but you will find them in separate groups. Are you considering..?_"

"Yes," I say. The many voices in my head have still not decided themselves, but this is really the only choice I can make. "I'll do it."

"_Very well. I thank you for this, my child. Only if you do this can we-_"

"They're not dead yet," I growl. "I..let me think...How many groups might I assume they are in? How will I recognize them? Do their appearances differ greatly from one another? Is there anything I should not tell them? Or should not know?"

It is hard to tell for a machine, but it seems my master is staring at me oddly. "_I...I do not know all of the answers to your questions,_" it rasps after a pause. "_But..I can guess._"

"Tell me," I say.

• • •

A dry wind stings my eyes as I walk through the winding factory corridors leading to the cavernous entrance – the first wind, I think idly, that I have ever known.

"How do I _know_, then?" I mutter to myself. I was, literally, created only a few hours past. How, then, do I know the feel of wind? The human's name for my master? The feel of the dry earth beneath my feet, the cold, dank metal wall?

Perhaps my master had given me all its memories and experiences before I woke..that would explain my knowledge, but if that is the case...

_Why do I feel so uneasy whenever the machine is nearby?_

I shake my head irritably. If I already have doubts now...

"_The demons will appear in your semblance,_" I remember my master saying, looming over me in the dark of the factory room. "_Do not be deceived. And do not listen to anything they tell you. They will try to lure you to your doom, just as you seek to do to them._"

I walk out of the final factory room into a darkening sky, dust blowing round the abandoned and shelled buildings stretching into haze.

All I must do now is destroy the demons. Doubts are only natural, but there is no place for them now. Destroy the demons, and then you have all of eternity to lay back and question in Eden.

Or so I tell myself.

I scramble up a ridge of hard-packed earth under the dusky sky and turn my back on the factory, setting out into the shattered world.


	2. A Broken World

Chapter Two – A Broken World

Millions of tiny points of fire twirl and wheel above me in a velvet sky; stars and planets and satellites of the long-dead human race.

It was once as beautiful on this earth as it was up there, I think, perched on the barrel of some enormous land-cannon. I stare at a tattered street map I seized from a roadside station to find my way about the ruined city. The cover shows a vibrant green city street, smiling humans flowing up and down a broad sidewalk beneath the shade of countless oaks. Old, perfectly maintained buildings line the crowd, prestigious signs spaced at irregular intervals. It is, without a doubt, a perfect world. I lay back on the barrel and tiredly wonder how my master will replicate the green of the trees.

Small print in the bottom right-hand corner of the flap reads _Conurbation Public Services Department, © 1851 V.E_.

The humans must have destroyed themselves after 1851, then...whenever that was...But not long after, else this map would have rotted.

The humans had so much excess, so much to rely on...

What went wrong?

Nothing in my borrowed memories seem to deal with the end of the human world, which is interesting..though annoying in the current situation. My master talked of the human's end coming in wails and fires of Ragnarok, but that seems overly ornate...I look about the ruins of Conurbation around me. A natural disaster could not have possibly caused this much damage, or cause only halfs of buildings to collapse like that...

A war. The only logical explanation could be a war.

But who...against who?

There were great fighting nations of humans, some spanning almost half the globe..But humans had always, _always_, acted first in self-preservation. Was it possible they could be stupid enough to destroy themselves in one final, all-consuming war?

Possible...but highly unlikely.

_Who were the humans fighting against, then?_

And out of the darkness comes a noise, interrupting my thoughts.

The sound is constant, but quiet; a strange rustling and humming mixed with a steady _chuk-chuk-chuk_. I glance around wildly. "Hello?" I call out. "Who's there?"

**_Chuk-chuk-chuk._**

I flip my wrists clockwise, suddenly glad of the swords on my arms. "Stay back!" I yell, wishing my cry could be emotionless like my master's. "Do not come any closer!"

**_CHUK-CHUK-CHUK._**

A light begins to shine, high up over the ruined towers. I yell and slash a sword in that direction. A searchlight on the bottom of...whatever it is...swivels in my direction. My eyes white out, and I stumble backwards.

The sound is deafening. I cannot see. I slash wildly with my sword-arms, vivid images of blinding, ravening demons darting through my brain.

The light grows brighter. I scream in desperation and fear. I cannot see. _I cannot see._

_Thunk._

My right arm digs deep into something. The light shuts off. I close and unclose my eye shutters several times as my vision swims back at an agonizingly sluggish pace.

A miniature blimp sits on the ground in front of me, a powerful searchlight, now switched off, on its underbelly. My right sword-arm is rammed deep into the dirigible's prow. I pull it out tentatively.

The tiny blimp immediately rises into the air and circles my head. I stare at the patched envelope, the metal plates of the underbelly. This is my master's work, I am sure. It was fortunate I did not damage the creation.

The ship stops in front of me again. A tiny whirring sound starts up as a section of the blimp's siding lowers into a miniature ramp, dumping a parcel at my feet.

With that, the ship suddenly lurches into the air and sails off into the horizon, switching on its searchlight, I note, only once it is a safe distance from me. I smile briefly as the now all-too-familiar **_chak-chak-chak_** fades into the background.

My master must already be creating new beings to populate its Elysium. I can envision larger versions of the blimp messenger patrolling the grounds of the factory, perhaps larger, burly mannequins and walkers to carry materials for creations to their God...

There is a rustling sound at my feet. I look down and see the parcel left me by the blimp messenger, papers blowing feebly in a dusty wind.

Oh. Right. I knew that was there.

I scoop up the packet of papers with an _oof_ – the parcel is abnormally heavy. There is a paper with a typewritten paragraph on top, and beneath that...A large paper circle within a metal disk, connected by a bundle of wires to a paper box...

I turn the disk over. It looks like my master's work, but...what on earth _is _it? I grab the typewritten page.

**My creation:**

**If you ever need aid on this quest, or must inform me of something vital, use the device I have given this messenger. Press on the paper box and the screen should display a real-time connection to my factory. The battery will recharge in the sun – it will fail, however, if used excessively.**

**Anticipating Elysium,**

**God**

**P.S. Avoid direct exposure to my messenger's eyes. Your eyes are sensitive and may suffer some feedback loops.**

I wad the paper up and toss it into a partially melted trash can, then weigh the disk in my hands. It will certainly be useful on my journey to come...but how does my master expect me to _carry this?!_ I stagger under it weight for a few steps before tripping over some obstruction and fly sprawling. The disk clatters off into the street.

I run to it and turn it over in my hands. Thankfully there are no tears in the paper...

Hanging from the outside metal rim of the disk, dislodged from the fall, is a thick leather shoulder strap.

"That would help," I mutter, putting the thing on.

• • •

The paper box fits nicely on top of the disk, somehow staying on even as I walk. If I avert my eyes, I might not even not notice it...

Except the blasted thing is _freaking heavy._ I stop for a minute to set the disk on the ground, then totter off down the street again under the inordinate load.

A dusty dry wind blows down the street and into my eyes. I pant and drop the disk again, resting on top of it.

Yep. Sounds about right. I will just fight off hordes of demons with a _fucking ten-pound weight_ under my arm.

I sigh, pick the infernal disk up, and stagger off down the street again.

• • •

Many hours later and dawn is beginning to crown the lowest buildings of ruined Conubation. Exhausted, I drag myself into an old drainage pipe and power down, balanced awkwardly on my paper disk.

I see my master far, far above me in the sky, wreathed by a neon halo and clouds of broken-doll angels. Below me are the fires and cogs of hell, eight terrifying demons whirling and lunging below me. **_Join us_**, they chant. **_Join us_**.

A hallowed metal arm reaches down and catches my wrist – my master, ready to pull me from the demons into its Heaven. But the demons below me lunge one final time. One snags my foot with a bizarre staff and pulls, screeching with triumph.

My master pulls harder, but the demons match it. I cry out in pain as I am stretched between the two. And then my master looms down.

It holds out a flat claw, and I see red, knobbled skin in the reflection. Horns and claws and yellowed, evil eyes stare back at me.

With a start, I realize it is myself and scream and scream. My master releases me, and I fall, still screaming, into the embrace of the demons and the hideous torments of hell.

The red flames and spikes blur and merge into a comforting crimson light. I float suspended in its silence, waiting for something I cannot comprehend. There is a flash of uncertainty. This is not right. I should not be here. A chill runs down my spine as the red fades slowly to a deep, ominous black.

And green light sizzles out of the darkness, wrapping tendrils around me and dragging me away from the red, towards some hideous construction of silver and brown, green light flowing into my eyes and mouth, eating away at my brain –

An enormous flash of green and all is gone.

• • •

I wake to the morning light and a repetitive _clak-clak-clak_ in a cold sweat.

I grope about my surroundings frantically. I am in some kind of hollow tube, with a paper disk nestled at my feet.

For a second I cannot remember who I am. I am- I am-

That is right. I am the unnamed servant of my master God, the Great Machine, created and sent out into the world to slay his demons. The metal disk is my link to it. I will find the demons and lead them to it and the world will be at peace.

_Clak_.

A songbird must be climbing my waterspout, I think sluggishly.

_Clak_.

A songbird?...That does not seem correct..and yet...I cannot compute properly. My systems are not all yet awake. I turn back over in the waterspout and close my eye shutters.

_Clak_.

That is when an image of metal walkers and fire and bombs with a strange green gas burns its way into the front of my mind.

There are no songbirds. They were all killed during the War of the Machines.

_Clak_. Cautiously I slide out of the waterspout and look up.

A bird skull fills my view. I gasp and stumble backwards. The bird skull flips up, revealing a strange face with white leather for skin. Goggle-like shuttered things for eyes. A pack of weapons on the thing's back.

The creature and I stare at each other in utter shock for a moment. Then slowly, cautiously, it extends a hand.

"Hello?" it says.


	3. A Perfect World

Chapter Three – A Perfect World

**June 16, 1851 V.E.**

It was the perfect end of a perfect day at the dawn of a perfect summer. Pleasantly mellowed light played across the trees, yellow hitting off the beautiful, vibrant deep green after the beautiful hues of spring. One or two premature leaves separated from their tree, drifting gently to the ground and pursued by laughing children.

The old man on the deck of the little café watched the scene dreamily, his tea and newspaper all but forgotten. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" he murmured to the little mannequin he was distractedly assembling on the table, its chest and neck opened to show spinning tapes and gears.

The automaton clicked thoughtfully a few times. A little burst of static, and then "_Hey, nonny no! Men are fools that wish to die! Is't not fine to dance and sing, when the bells of death do ring? Is't not fine to swim in wine, and turn upon the toe, and sing Hey, nonny, no! When the winds blow and the seas flow–_"

"A touch morbid," said the old man, grinning, "but-"

"Something Wicked This Way Comes?" interrupted a man sitting next to him. "Does anyone still read that shit?"

"Actually," said the old man, flustered, "it's Da-"

"_Go shake your ears!_" shouted the little automaton.

The other man stared. "Did that thing just talk to-"

"_'Twere as good a deed as to drink when a man's a-hungry, to challenge him the field and then to break promise and make a fool of him,_" continued the little robot.

The other man's eyes were wide now. "That thing can _speak?_" he said.

"Well..a little," muttered the old man. "It can respond to simple questions or phrases so far...but only with the text of Shakespeare and a few other classic authors. You wouldn't really appreciate it."

"_Before you speak, listen,_" piped up the little robot. "_Before you write, think._"

"No, wait. I'm sorry," said the other man. "How does that thing _do_ that?"

The light had faded into an oranger hue, the soft breeze died down. Most of the playing children had left to return home.

"...So the optical lens – this red glass here," the old man was saying, "will map the face and compare that to its interior catalogue of emotions, stored _here_-" -he gestured to a complex system of tapes in the machine's left chest- "-and finds a quote from its inventory _here,_ in the right chest, that it finds compatible."

"How in the hell," said the other man, leaning over the delicate machinery, "did you ever manage to-"

"That's not all," the old man said proudly. "In addition to the emotions sensor, _this_ ring of microphone coils, here around the eye, will listen to anything said to him and sends it down _here_, to this processor in the stomach, where it works with the right chest to find a suitable quote for the situation – of course, that's mostly trial and error, but the more it talks, the better it gets – and then the lens will analyze the person's reaction to that quote in that situation and try to determine whether it's appropriate or not."

"So the thing just remembers everything anyone's ever said to it before," said the other man, obviously awestruck, "and remembers that, like, getting up and dancing after someone's told him about their mother's funeral doesn't go well?"

As if on cue, the automaton leapt up and began performing a little jig. "_Ding dong! The Witch is dead! Which old witch? The Wicked Witch!_"

Both men stared for a second, then burst out laughing.

• • •

"I call him Pinocchio," the old man explained a glass of wine later. "Because he's just a machine now, but I'm going to make him into a real boy. I'm going to make him human."

"You mean..." The other man stared. "You can do _better _than that?"

The old man nodded. "Of course! It'll just take a lot of work..I'll have to reprogram him with a dictionary...type in every individual word myself, plus slang and contractions...But I can do it. And I'll do it soon. The thing is," he said, leaning forwards, "the thing is, Pinocchio's only my prototype."

"_That_..." the other man repeated slowly, "is only...your _prototype?_"

The old man nodded. "He's got a memory now," he explained, "and a voice. But I've got another idea. It's still in the makings, mind you..but I think I'll be able to give my Pinocchio.._imagination!_"

"Well," the other man said, "well, if you do that, he'd be.."

"He'd be human, wouldn't he?" said the old man. "With personality and feelings and everything else! What we're looking at here...we're looking at the _first artificial intelligence!_"

"Wow," said the other man, sounding suitably impressed. "Do you know how much this thing is worth? Do you know how damn much?"

"Well," said the old man, "it will probably just be a curio for scientists..perhaps a few wealthy families would want them as playmates for their children..."

"No, no, no, no, _no,_" said the other man. "You don't get it, do you? This thing...it's like a person, but without feelings you can hurt, innit? It's the perfect worker! Take these things, tell them to do a job! They don't complain! They do it perfectly 'til their battery runs out!"

"That _is _a good idea..." pondered the old man. "We could sell them to mail rooms, I suppose.."

"You still don't get it!" The other man was practically shouting now. "Secretaries! Doctors! Pilots! Garbagemen! Soldiers! Every job humans don't want to do, or might slip up at! These things would fill the workforce! Don't you understand?" He cradled Pinocchio gently in the palm of his hand and lifted him up to the twilight sky. "This little guy is the _future!_"

"The future?" asked the old man.

"_The FUTURE!_" screamed the other man. He brought the automaton down to his face and kissed the eyepiece. "I think I'm in love with you, you know?" he murmured to the little robot. "You're going to make so much money."

"_By innocence I swear, and by my youth, I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth. And that no woman has, nor never none, Shall mistress be of it, save I alone._"

The other man giggled. "This thing is brilliant. It's brilliant. There's nothing before that can compare to this. Nothing."

• • •

The streetlights twinkled in the black hours of the morning as the old man slowly made his way home, Pinocchio perched like a parrot on his shoulder. The man at the café had turned out to have been from a newspaper, and had left his number in the hopes of interviewing the scientist and his automaton.

"The future, hmm?" the old man asked Pinocchio on his shoulder. "What do you say to that?"

"_He who controls the past controls the future,_" mumbled the little robot. "_He who controls the present controls the past._"

"Well...sort of." The old man absentmindedly patted his automaton on the head. "You'll get the hang of it."

"_If you want a picture of the future,_" whispered the robot in singsong, "_imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever._"

The old man's house was dark when he got there at last. Pinocchio shone a light on the door for him as he fumbled with his keys. Alexandria had gone to bed long ago – he kissed his daughter, then snuck quietly out of the room where she lay with the walking teddy bear he had fashioned for her.

The lights of the master bedroom were out, too. Elaine lay facing away from him at the far edge of the bed, sound asleep.

The old man pulled on his nightgown and plugged Pinocchio into his outlet on the dresser. "Well, what did you think of that?" whispered the old man to the robot. He always tried to talk to it for a few minutes before he fell asleep in an attempt to improve its speech analysis. "You might be famous soon."

"_In the future,_" intoned the little robot, "_everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes._"

The old man grinned wanly. "We can hope, can't we?" He pulled himself into bed, grimacing at his aching joints. "It's late. Good night, Pinocchio."

"_Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet._"

"Well. Tomorrow, my son, the whole world might know about you."

"_The whole world._"

The old man was asleep within minutes. Only the little robot remained aware on the edge of the dresser, a faint glow coming from his single red eye as he sat there, thinking.


	4. Contact

Chapter Four – Contact

We stand there in the pre-dawn light, the strange pale creature and I, watching the other warily.

"Hello?" it repeats. "You can talk, can't you?"

I edge a bit further away from the newcomer. "Yes. What are you?"

The creature looks at me oddly. "That's what I'm trying to decide for _you_. What number are you? 10?"

"Number?"

"Turn around," the strange pale creature commands.

"That depends. What are you?"

"And that's what I'm trying to – oh, never mind. My name's 7. I'm telling you this only because I'm _pretty sure_ you're not a beast or a machine. And now I do intend to find out _who _or_ what _you are. Happy?"

"No." I mull this over. "Your name is _7_?"

"Yeah. 7. Don't you have a number?"

"Why on earth would you be called 7? Just 7? Is that a...military title? Don't you have a proper name?"

The creature calling itself 7 looks lost for words now. It carefully opens and closes its mouth. "No. Just 7. We're...numbered that way, I guess. Now _who are you?_ You look like a beast, but you _talk._"

"You're...numbered that way?" A chill is creeping up my spine.

"Yes. One. Two. Three. You know. Numbered. The scientist did it."

I slowly ascend a pile of rubble to give myself a better vantage point. "How many of there are you?"

"Ni-eight." 7's glare softens. "There are eight of us. Nine again, _if_ you turn out to be one of us."

It is settled, then. "There are eight of you."

"Yes." The creature raises its arms in what is supposed to be an entreating gesture. "You don't have any memories, do you? You're lost and scared. Come down from there. I won't hurt you."

"_Stay back!_" I yell. "Get away from me!"

7 ignores me and steps closer. I turn my wrists and the swords whisk out of my arms. That stops her.

"_Get away!_" I scream. "You're a demon!"

7 has a sword of her own out now, held up defensively. "No! Calm down! I'm not a machine!"

"He warned me not to trust you," I say, breathing heavily. "He told me you should die. Get away!"

7 lowers her guard, confused. "Who told you?"

"The Ma-"

Something heavy hits my head with a muffled _thunk_. The ground does a slow rotation. Why is the Earth spinning? "You shouldn't be here," I hear 7 say as if from a distance, fear showing on her strange pale face. Something gives a deep, sonorous laugh behind me.

Then the earth rushes up to meet me. I am unconscious before I hit the ground.

• • •

I am suspended in a void as before, with the cogs of Hell below and the lights of Heaven above. My master sits on a battered steel cloud, surrounded by hosts of homunculus cherubim, but his hallow Elysium seems somehow tinny, unreal. I see the barest ghost of an outline _above_ my master, a being even greater than the god of this new world. White hair splayed in a halo above its head, it frantically gestures for me to look down.

The demons are no longer prancing and lunging. They cower in fear behind an enormous blackened gear and then scramble from safety and run in desperation.

Something hits them, one by one. They erupt into flames and fall, blackened, lifeless husks.

There is something moving in the deeps of Tartarus – a colossal being, outline becoming clearer and clearer-

• • •

Groggily I open my eyes. The beating of my artificial heart pounds in my head, and I wince in pain. The outline of the shadow of my dreams still haunts me – something I am sure I should remember...but the more I struggle to recollect it, the more it fades from my grasp, and the throbbing in my skull sheds the last hold I had on the memory.

I open my eyes instead. Dust motes drift peacefully across my vision. They hang suspended in beams of light cast from long, elegant shattered glass windows far above me. Arched ribs of stone soar up to meet in a vaulted roof an impossible distance overhead.

"Church," I mumble, savoring the word, no longer caring that it makes no sense for me to know it. "I am in a church."

Something rustles behind me. "He's awake," announces a familiar voice. 7. The demon 7.

I try to rise, but thick cords bind me to a heavy oaken chair. I cannot turn my wrists. "What do you want?" I gasp.

7 walks around my chair, blocking my view of the pillars. "Sorry about the ropes," she whispers apologetically. "1's just paranoid you might try to kill someone."

I stare at this maddeningly inconsistent demon. "1? Who is 1?"

"Turn him around," commands a new, dry voice from behind me, and 7 drags my chair around to face the front of the church.

A chair sits half-hidden beneath the pillars of light, with an enormous, hefty demon positioned behind the back and a shorter, thin demon slouched on the seat. The latter rises and circles me curiously, long red cape rustling. "Number?" he finally demands.

"What do you mean?" I bark. "You keep asking for this number. Is it some piece of information you want to have? I do not know what it is!"

The thin demon has recoiled slightly under my onslaught. Now he leans back, frog-like eyes distorted by anger. "You will not..." he hisses, eerily calm, "_ever_...address me like that again."

"He wants to know if there's a number on your back," interjects 7. "Like us."

"How should I know?" I spit.

"Get him up from the chair," the thin demon tells the giant behind the chair. "Keep his hands tied."

The creature lumbers forward into the light – a ragtag behemoth of a creature, all ripped cloth and burnished metal, blood-red scar patterns painted on its lips. A painted number 8 has been painstakingly inscribed on its shoulder. The thing grabs my wrists and cuts the ropes binding me with an enormous cleaver, then reties my hands behind my back with a length of leather. I struggle, but my wrists are unable to turn.

The thing ‒ 8 ‒ chuckles, and I recognize the thing that knocked me out in Conurbation. "Scared that I'll gut you with these?" I mutter, nodding my head towards my bound arms.

8 laughs. "Scared of those toothpicks?" He hefts his cleaver and swaggers away.

1 inspects my back, trying to pull the metal plates away. 8 checks both my shoulders for a mark.

"He has no number," announces the thin demon at length, pulling away. He ascends the stairs leading up to his chair again and peers down at me from under his tall bishop's hat. "7 was right," he announces, carefully seating himself on the throne. "You do, at first sight, appear to be a beast."

"But he can talk," says 7 from behind my chair. "You know beasts can't talk."

I do not know what they are talking about, but it seems to have something to do with killing me or not. I decide to keep my mouth closed.

"Things have changed," says the thin demon. "The world is slipping into chaos once again. Who knows what the beasts might be able to do, now that that _thing_.." he gestures towards the windows, "is commanding them?"

I am unable to refrain from asking questions. "What...thing?" I blurt out.

The thin demon's eyes narrow. "A monster of the Last Days, awakened by that fool 9. Arms and blades and claws reaching out from a long, tapered body. One enormous red eye. We call it The Great Machine."

It would be wise to pretend not to know anything, I surmise. "And...this, ah, Great Machine...is it bad that it has woken?"

The thin demon sits in place for a moment, then rises and strides off down the church's corridor. "Follow me," he calls over his shoulder. "And bring the creature."

The thin demon's cape covers his number, but it is not difficult to guess what it is.

"Yes, 1," the giant 8 rumbles, scooping me up under his arm.

We travel to a battered metal cup at the bottom of a shaft upwards. 8 opens a door in the cup and throws me in, chuckling as I hit the side, then crosses to a large wheel as the others enter and begins to crank it. The little cup shudders, then rises. We ascend past bookshelves and smoke-stained bricks into darkness.

7 and 1 are whispering about me in the other corner of the elevator, but not so quietly that I cannot hear. "You still think he's a beast, don't you?" 7 is saying.

"No...not anymore," says 1. "He is not a beast...But he is not of the Coven, either. He's something new. Something not of our Scientist's hand. I fear he has been sent by the monster to lure us to our doom."

The pair glances over at me. I try to look distracted.

"No. He's not like that, I promise," 7 whispers. "He's just like the rest of us when _we_ woke up – lost and confused and scared. He just wants to know who he is. Be nice to him."

That stops 1 in his tracks. He gives a strangled little laugh that grows until 8 glances over, concerned.

The old, thin demon gives 7 a sad smile. "You must know by now. I can't be _nice_ to _anybody_. Civilization has fallen, 7, and all these dreams of peace on earth and tokens of goodwill have fallen with it. You try to be..._nice_...to anybody or anything, and they'll repay you by stabbing you in the back."

"I don't believe that," 7 whispered.

"I suppose it doesn't matter, though, does it?" murmured 1, his regular dry voice creeping back in. "I'm never going to give you the chance to try and disprove it."

Bored, 8 begins to hang out of the side of the cup as he cranks the wheel, laughing like an overgrown child.

"Get down from there, 8," 7 commands tiredly. "You're going to fall down the shaft and die."

8 giggles and leans even further out of the cup, swinging around in empty space.

_Thunk._

The cup grinds to a sudden halt, and 8 frantically windmills as he nearly does fall down the shaft after all. "Follow me," intones 1, ignoring the flailing 8 as he pushes the door open and exits the cup into a higher level of the church.

The light is brighter here than it is on the shattered ground far below, and whispers of wind dance through the rooms. We pass through a place where something – a fire or a bomb – has torn through the ornate outer wall of the church and left the rooms exposed to the outside. I catch a glimpse of a feeble sun in a washed-out sky, and sooty clouds in angry turmoil a floor below us. "We are above the clouds?" I gasp. "How is that possible?"

7 grins at me. "We're in Sanctuary's tower," she says. "We can see everything that goes on in the Dead City from up here."

"Sanctuary?"

"It's what we call this place," says 1 from the front of the group. "Because it is the only safe place left for us in all the world."

We reach the edge of the tower, where an enormous, rotating sextant-like contraption has been mounted on the balcony. "This was the first thing the Coven built together," 7 says, checking knobs and valves on the device. "It's our telescope. Our eye down into the City."

I put my eye to the viewpiece and see the ground rushing up at me from far below, crystal clear. "This telescope can see through the clouds?" I say.

"Yeah," says 7. "Me and 5 built this..." She looks down. "...With 2."

I am unsure of what to make of her reaction. "And...er...is 2 missing now?"

1 has finished positioning the telescope. "Look," he commands.

I bend forwards and peer through the viewport.

Hard-packed earth and barbed wire is all that greets me at first as 8 carefully pans the telescope upwards under 1's orders. Then...a cave stretching back into the hill. Misshapen boards above that lead into soaring rusty buttresses and iron walls. Something shudders and grinds from deep within the frightening building, and the buttresses creak and begin to move.

"What _is_ this place?" I whisper in fright.

8 pans further upwards, past towers and dilapidated bridges, zooming out to show me the iron castle in all its desuetude glory. Three immense smokestacks crown the keep, and I belatedly recognize it as my master's abode.

"This is the Machine's fortress," hisses 1 from behind me. "We call it The Factory."

The air is frigid this high up, and I give an involuntary shudder. "Ah...so the Machine has woken up and lives there now? That doesn't seem like something to be terrified about. I mean, the Machine could be perfectly friendly and harmless."

1 gives a bark of laughter. "A week ago now," he began, "exactly a week ago, we had another stitchpunk join us. We had been promised he would be our saviour."

1 is spitting out each word. "I...ah..." I try to say. "I am assuming he did not live up to your expectations?"

"He was another trigger-happy imbecile," growls 1. "The _very first thing_ he did upon meeting us was to lure 2 out into the open to fix the new one's voice box. Straight into the territory of the Cat-Beast."

"The _what_?"

1 gives a sniff of disdain. "It looked a bit like you, but giant. Cat-like. The thing..." 1 pauses unexpectedly and grips the railing. "It knew they were there and came to take them. 2 shoved the new stitchpunk ‒ 9 ‒ into a hiding place and used himself as bait to lure the Beast away. The imbecile leapt from his hiding place and tried to fight the monster anyway, but...it grabbed 2 in its jaws and dragged him to its lair deep in the Factory.

"9 rushed back to Sanctuary with a half-baked plan to follow the creature and rescue 2."

"Sonofabitch thought it was possible," rumbles 8, panning the telescope to show me the entrance to the Beast's lair again.

"He didn't think," says 1, leaning against the railing again. "He _never_ thinks. 9 didn't understand that the rules in Sanctuary are to _protect _us, that the world out there is _dangerous_..." 1 sighs dejectedly. "9 convinced 5 to accompany him to the Beast's lair. They brought along with them a strange copper artifact 9 had inherited from the Scientist, never once stopping to question whether it was important.

"Of course the Cat-Beast sensed them as soon as they were in the factory. It stalked them through the factory, and thanks to 9 they were nearly all killed again. Thankfully, 7 intervened and cut off the Cat-Beast's head."

"I...er..." I turn to 7. "You _cut off a giant metal cat's head_."

7 nods, beaming. "Jumped down from the rafters onto it. It was fun."

"So 7 killed the Cat-Beast," I say to 1, "and 9 freed 2, and everyone lived happily ever after, right?"

1 gives a strangled chuckle. "I think about that often," he said. "What if everything had simply stopped there and we were left with all nine of us in a perfect world, free from beasts? But then..." 1 spat the words, "that...that _good-for-nothing_...ah..."

"Jackass?" 8 suggested.

"Yes," said 1. "That would begin to convey it."

I am beginning to get a sense of what must have happened to 2. I am not sure I _want _to know what happened to 2. "I...why..."

1 seems to sense my apprehension. "Shut down the telescope, 8. Our guest is right. This story doesn't matter right now."

We troop back through the empty rooms to the elevator. The ride down is spent in silence, with 1 glowering at me from the other side of the lift. I feel as if I am being judged and found wanting.

The sun is setting and 8 escorts me to a small room with a table – my paper disk is on it, which surprises me – and a bed, carefully measures my wrists, and leaves. I perch awkwardly on the edge of the mattress, trying to sort out the events of today. There is a war between the demons and my master, certainly. It wants to destroy them and they likewise wish to slay it. That is natural.

"_2 shoved the new stitchpunk ‒ 9 ‒ into a hiding place and used himself as bait to lure the Beast away._" 7's words return to haunt me. 2 was evidently a demon, just like the rest of them, but-

Why would a demon be selfless like that?

• • •

The door to my room creaks open and 1 stalks in, crackling velvet robe swishing along behind him. "You seem to have convinced 7 that you're simply a poor lost soul who needs guidance," he began.

Note to self: No preamble with this one. "What do you mean?" I say.

1 walks further into the room, leaning heavily, I note, on his crook. He carries a smell of fresh velvet and old leather with him. "My..._guest_..." he says, twisting the word around, "do you think I haven't noticed that you still haven't told us _who you are_ or _where you came from?_"

"You never seemed to ask," I say, attempting to stare him down.

1 does not seem amused. "So you claim you're one of us. Why did our creator build you with _blades_ hidden in your forearm? Why, instead of the usual material, did he craft you from the rustheap in the form of a beast?" 1 stalks around the bedframe. "The others seem to have accepted you, but I still believe you were sent by the Monster to destroy us."

"That is ridiculous," I say glibly. "I would never do that."

1 jabs his crook at me from across the room. "Then tell me, _guest_, where _did_ you come from?"

I swallow. "Well...that is...a...a small room, with a...few scattered papers, and...there was a window set in one wall. I woke up and...the window blew open, so I climbed out into the city and 7 and 8 found me there."

1 narrows his eyes at me. "I still think you're bait for that thing's trap," he snarls. Then he abruptly slumps down against the wall. "What's the point?" he mutters, raising his eyes towards me. "If you were truly sent by the Machine, you would assassinate us if we trusted you, and slaughter us if we are chary of you. We will simply have to pray," 1 says, struggling to his feet, "that you have some soul in you." He limps to the door. "Good night, guest," he says wearily over his shoulder, and there is no barb in his voice this time.

• • •

The moon is full in the window overhead, its scarred and lifeless surface a mirror for Earth's. I am in the final stages of drowsiness, about to fall asleep.

A shadow flits across my vision. Something large, right over me. I sit up abruptly in bed, flashing my eye-beam on.

"Ow!" 7 recoils from the light. "Shit, that's bright. Turn it off."

"Sorry," I say sheepishly, plunging the room back into darkness. "Why are-"

7 cuts the rope binding my wrists and slips a pair of leather guards onto my arms. "8's been up all night making these," she explains. "1 won't have you walking around freely with those blades, but at least you can move your arms now."

"I see," I say, flexing my newly unhindered arms. "Give 8 my thanks."

"I will," says 7, smiling and moving towards the door. She pauses at the last minute and turns to face me. "You don't still think we're demons, do you?" she asks softly.

I am unsure what to think anymore. "No," I finally say. It is the only safe answer in the scenario.

"Good," says 7, beaming. "Good night." She closes the door behind her.

I am afraid to sleep, because I know I will dream of the spikes and cogs of Hell. And I fear I will see myself there, with the demons.

One of them.

* * *

A/N: The next chapter will be posted on June 21. Hope you've enjoyed the story so far. Please review if you like it/were put to sleep by it/want to kill it with fire.


	5. Forks and Knives

A/N: A big _Thank you! _shout-out to Silver & Gold and Cel for making sure the number of reviews for this story doesn't match its title! :D

Yes, they eat car batteries. Problem?

* * *

Chapter Five – Forks and Knives

I am walking through a lush wood, alive and vibrant like the trees on the Conurbation brochure. I am not sure why I am here, but I know I must keep moving.

Squirrels scamper about my ankles and through the trees. I ignore them and keep walking, but their screeches grow louder as I continue down the path.

The path is a flood of tiny brown bodies. I stop and turn to face the trees behind me, sagging under the weight of hundreds of squirrels. "Please stop," I say. "I must continue on my journey, but there are so many of you that you are blocking the path. Move aside."

An ebony squirrel regards me calmly from the high branches of a tree. "The other squirrels have filled up the rest of the world. There is nowhere else for us to go."

"Very well," I sigh, returning to slogging through the rising masses of squirrels. A bloody head suddenly falls in my path.

I look up. Red squirrels chase brown squirrels through the trees, tearing their backs apart and throwing their entrails from the high branches.

I wheel about in astonishment and revolt. The black squirrel sits on its high branch, watching the carnage. "See what they will do?" it says to me. "See what will happen if they are left unchecked?" The black squirrel smiles. "The only way to save them is to..." From where the black squirrel was perched comes an eruption of heat and smoke. A deafening explosion blows everything into smoke and flames, and only I stand still as I watch the world erupt into smoke and flames.

Slowly, slowly the smoke clears. The forest still stands, but it has been killed; hundreds of blackened, lifeless branches reaching up entreatingly to the sky.

The road I had to follow through the forest still lies mostly intact, a scarred ribbon through the remains of the trees. I follow it, smoldering squirrel bones crunching under my feet.

The path leads over a ridge. I start up it, already knowing what I will find on the other side.

My master's castle stretches far up into the dirty brown sky, cranking pistons beckoning me as if to say _Welcome home. Come in, come in._

The dank tunnel has been replaced by a small, comfortable door, and I ease my way into a long, low, comfortable wooden hall. "_Welcome back, my child,_" says a voice at the end of the hall, and I follow it into my master's quarters.

I am somehow standing inside the large room of Sanctuary, the stone arches and beautiful shattered windows soaring up behind the great metal eye. My master is refurbished and gleams a lustrous bronze.

"_How goes your work, my son?_" the shining Machine asks me, craning its arm down from its alcove high in the hallow place.

"Not well," I admit. "Am I dreaming?"

The Machine laughs, a hearty sound with tears of lightning streaming down its metal cheeks. "_Yes, my child. This is not your Factory, and the squirrels are no longer of your world, and I am not your master. Just a voice in your head._"

"I see..." I take a seat in one of the comfortable chairs scattered around the room. "Is there a reason why I am here, then?"

"_Not really,_" the dream Machine admits. "_Just a temporary recluse from your problems._"

"My...problems."

The dream Machine nods earnestly. "_You no longer know who are the good guys and who are the villains. Suspect your master's hiding part of the world's history from you. You sometimes wonder if you've been sent to commit genocide. I'd call that a problem._"

"H-how do you know all this?" I ask.

The dream Machine giggles, a bizarre sound for an enormous spider-like machinator of death. It turns back to me with an eye colored a soft green, in striking contrast to my scarlet-lensed master. "_My child, I am you. I know everything there is to know about you._"

"Fine," I say. "Who am I, then?"

"_My child,_" the dream Machine sighs, "_you should know that I cannot answer questions you do not know the answers to yourself._"

The ring of a doorbell interrupts him. "_Ah,_" says the dream Machine. "_That will be Speculum. Come in, Spec._"

A door somewhere at the back of the church opens and a ragtag wooden creature in a small coat flounces in, reflections of the high windows glinting in her mismatched red-and-white eyes. She grins at me. "How are things going over in your world, brother? Have they given you a name yet?"

"My world?"

"Your dream world." Spec bounces up and down. "Is it really like Father said? Is the Coven friendly over there?"

I glance helplessly up at the dream Machine. "I thought you said that _this_ was _my _dream world. Not the other way around."

A twinkle in the dream Machine's eye makes me sure it is grinning. "_To you, yes. It works both ways. We are dreaming of you here, too._"

"This...this..." I am not even sure what to say. "This is a sort of meeting point?" I ask. "Between...possible worlds?"

Both the dream Machine and Spec burst out laughing. I glance from one of them to the other. "What? What is it?"

"That would get into parallel dimensions, brother," Spec answers at length. "Branes, things like that. You can...barely prove them, and..." She starts giggling uncontrollably again. "..they're impossible to travel between..."

"_Well,_" interjects the dream Machine, "_that has yet to be proven...with enough mass and momentum, an object might be able to..._"

"But not without destroying the very _object itself_ and the _portal too..._" Spec begins to laugh again.

"Stop it!" I say, annoyed. "I don't see what's so funny."

"_My apologies,_" says the dream Machine, eye crackling with mirth. "_Spec's been studying string theory for the past two weeks. She finds anything to do with it hilarious for the time being._"

"It's hardly even that," gasps Spec, sitting up and wiping her eyes, "as the expression when he thought this was a..." She convulses into giggles again.

The dream Machine sighs wearily and bends its great eye down towards me. "_In answer to your question – no, my son. This is not a meeting point between worlds. One of us is the other's dream. But the question is – are you dreaming of us? Or are you just part of our dream?_"

"I – well – that would be –" I think about it for a minute. "That hurts my head. Could we talk about something else, please?"

The dream Machine looks at me with its enormous round eye. "_Yes,_" it says. "_You are right. Forgive me. We only have a little time, and we must discuss what you will do when you reach your world again._"

"What do you mean?" I ask. "I wake up, I meet the rest of the Coven, -"

"_They begin to trust you,_" the dream Machine interrupts, "_and you them. And then your master tells you to lead them to him so he can murder the lot._"

"What would you do then, brother?" asks Speculum, biting her lip.

"I would...I...God, I don't know."

The dream Machine makes a _harrumph_ing sound. "_You walked out into the world with the idea that you would find demons, which you would slay and be rewarded with Elysium. It was too black-and-white of you, don't you agree? Now you find people instead of demons. You are at a loss, aren't you?_"

"Well...yes," I admit, looking down. "But what do I do about it?" I glance entreatingly towards the apparitions. "Do you know what I should do?"

Spec sighs. "Brother, if what you say is true and we are just characters in your dream, we can't know anything that you don't know."

"_One of us has created the other,_" says the dream Machine, looking down, "_because life is hard and we need someone to understand us._"

"And laugh at about string theory," says Spec. "And argue over dream worlds. And all the other things people in real life are too mundane to do."

The pair of them smile at me. "_Goodbye, son,_" says the dream Machine. "_We all must wake now._"

Spec waves as if from a distance. "See you soon, brother."

"Wait!" I call. "About my memories. Do you know how I know everything I do?"

The dream Machine and Spec are beginning to fade into the background. "_That we do know, my child,_" says the dream Machine, and its voice is distorted and tinny. "_But you are hiding it from yourself. The only answer I can give is another question..._

_My child..._"

I am wrenched from the sun-dappled church and into the murk of an enormous factory room, where an iron Eye of red stares down at me.

"_Who are you?_"

"Hello? Anyone in there?"

I sit straight up in bed, nearly knocking into a crouched 7. "You're up!" she exclaims. "Welcome to the waking world, sleepyhead. It's almost ten o' clock. 1 says if you're not down for breakfast in five minutes he'll feed it all to 8."

I yawn, my dreams already slipping away. There was something about a bronze spider...a talking black squirrel...I cannot remember. "Alright," I mumble, rolling out of the cot. "Who makes the breakfast here?" An image of 8 with a skillet and apron pops into my mind.

"Varies," says 7. "Whoever's found food. It's 5's turn today. He found a whole car battery out in the Wastes."

"The Wastes?" I ask, though the name sounds familiar.

"We're in the Dead City now," says 7. "That way," she flings her arm out to the northwest, "is a huge plain of packed dirt. Goes on for miles. We call it the Wastes. Over in the other direction," she points to the south, "are the Shards. Big mountain range. Like _huge._ We don't go that way."

"What then?" I ask. 7 looks inquisitively at me. "Past the Shards and Wastes, I mean."

7 ponders this for a minute. "Um...I think...2 said something once about a sea past the Shards? Storms usually blow in from there, so... But I don't know about the Wastes. It might go on forever."

I try to imagine millions upon millions of desolate and barren earth, stretching on til the end of the world. It is a saddening thought.

"There's a lot of salvage in the Wastes, though," 7 adds. "Big abandoned cars and towns. Lots of car batteries." She tugs my arm. "C'mon."

We walk down a long curving staircase, the wood darkened with age but still intact. "See you there," 7 grins at me. She jumps suddenly onto the banister and slides down as I hurry behind.

Voices laugh and bicker below me, some familiar, some not.

"So then this _light_ comes on, deep in the room, and something starts moving under an enormous flag, and then...oh...um, 5, should 8 be eating that?"

"What?...Oh my god. _8, that's a FORK! You don't eat that!_"

"Mmbhb. Mmnbl."

"Jesu...1, tell 8 to stop eating the fork."

"8, put the fork down."

"And now he's picking up the...oh no. _8, these are UTENSILS! You eat WITH them! You don't EAT them!_"

"Grrmblmmr. Mhnmmgrbnl."

"What the _he_...1, do something."

"8, if you eat that knife I'm having you fetch a new one from the Great Machine's factory."

There is a sudden clank of metal.

I walk into a long, large room off the side of the main church with a long plastic trestle table looking as if it had been looted from a dollhouse. It probably had been. 1 sneers at me from the end of the table. 8 looks up, a broken fork hanging out of his mouth.

"_Jesus,_ 8!" says a stitchpunk I have never seen before, made of coarse brown cloth with a leather patch covering one eye. "What were you _thinking_? You don't eat cutlery!"

"Maybe he wanted a change in diet," murmurs a black-and-white striped silk stitchpunk in the corner.

"Lots of iron," says 1.

The room stays somber for several moments, and then the corners of 1's mouth begin to tug upwards into a small smile. The stitchpunk with the eyepatch begins to giggle, and then the entire table, 1 included, bursts out laughing.

And then they see me.

"Everyone, we have a new addition to our group," says 7 from behind me. "Me and 8 found him out in the Dead City."

A stitchpunk next to Eyepatch recovers from his initial shock first. "Nice to meet you," he says, proffering a lacquered wood hand. "I'm 9. What number are you?"

"He doesn't have a number," 1 growls from the end of the table. "Me and 8 checked yesterday. He's a blank."

"We need a name for him, though." The voice is 7's.

1 nods his assent. "10," offers the stitchpunk with the eyepatch.

The black-and-white striped stitchpunk studies me for a second, then shakes his head. "He's not a 10."

"Besides," says 7, "what happens if we find a real 10?" She pats me on the shoulder. "We'd have to change your name again."

"Two forty-seven," rumbles 8, who has finally extracted the fork from his teeth. "We're never gonna find two hundred an' forty-seven more stitchpunks out there."

A unanimous "No," meets his offer. I like none of the names suggested.

"I am 0," I say. "I will be 0. Because I am nobody. Nothing."

"No!" says 7. "You have a place here now!"

1's eyes narrow. "Are you implying that you are _superior _to-"

"No," I cut him off. "I promise I am not trying to steal your authority. Does anyone else object?"

Everyone looks to the figure in the corner. "0? 0. Zero zero zero zero," mutters the silk stitchpunk, toying with a key hanging around its neck. "Hmm. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe maybe. Not good. Not wonderful. Not _splendid._ It will do, though. Will do, will do. Until." The figure goes back to playing with its key, mismatched eyes following it back and forth.

"Welcome, 0," says the one-eyed stitchpunk, pulling out a chair for me. "I'm 5."

"Hello," I say, somewhat awkwardly, sitting down gingerly on the proffered chair. "Er...would you mind introducing the rest of these people to me?"

"Oh!" says 5. "Sorry. Um...let's see...1 you already know, it sounds like." I glance towards the end of the table, where the leader of the Coven is absent-mindedly drumming his fork. "And 2 is..." 5's head droops. "Well, he's..."

"It is alright," I say. "1 told me."

5 forces a grin. "Okay. Well, 3 and 4...oh, they're not here either. They'll be back from the Library...next week? Ish? I'll let them introduce themselves then."

I glance over, puzzled. "The Library?"

"Did someone tell you about the Wastes and the Dead City and-" I nod. "Okay, good. That way," – he points to the vague east – "is Rossum's Forest. Way inside it is the Library. The twins spend most of their time there and they're almost never back on time, so it might be a while before you get to meet them."

"I see," I say, slowly assembling a map of the world in my mind. Sanctuary...the Wastes...Rossum's Forest...the Shards...the rest can wait. "And you are 5, of course..." The one-eyed stitchpunk nods cheerfully. "So 6 must be-"

5 slowly swings his arm around to point at the black-and-white striped stitchpunk in the corner, frenetically scribbling something on a stray page. It flutters out of his grasp, and he puckers his brow before diving out of his chair to retrieve it. I catch a glimpse of the paper. _Sfb kmlqsbp qjbbnq _is all it says.

5 must have noticed my confused stare, for he quickly says, "6 is a bit...um...of a loner. He tells us he's a seer, but," he shakes his head, chuckling sadly, "if only he could have predicted what happened to 2..."

"I am sure none of you would have been able to prevent it even if he had," I comment, again feeling awkward. "It is nobody's fault here."

"Yeah," says 5, "yeah, I guess you're right." He seems to perk up a bit. "And I think you know everyone after that...7 and 8 found you in the Wastes, so..."

"And then I'm 9," says the sackcloth stitchpunk on 5's other side. He peers at me more closely. "1 was right, you know. You look a lot like the Beast."

He is condemning me, yet his tone seems light.

"But the Scientist built the Beast, too, right?" he continues. "And the Great Machine. So it makes sense that He might have designed one of us like them. To protect us, maybe, like 7 or 8. Do those do anything?"

He is gesturing to my leather wristguards. "These?" I say, lifting them up. "No, 1 added these for fear I will injure someone. With these off, if I spin my wrists like this..." I try to demonstrate, but am hindered by the wristguards, "blades about...ah, the length of my forearm...spring out."

9 nods appreciatively. "See? You must have been sent to save us from the Great Machine and its creations."

I nod slowly, burdened by the irony of my deceit. "What is the nearest settlement, then?"

"What do you mean?"

"The closest community of others like you." Apprehension crawls over me. "There _are_ others, are there not?"

5 looks at me strangely. "Don't you know? After the War of the Machines, every living thing was dead."

"But not us," I argue. "Some other people must have created stitchpunks somewhere else in the world. It would not be possible for _everything_ to be..."

9 shakes his head. "Our father had foresight. Because he had created the Machine, he was able to see what was coming. Everyone else wasn't so lucky."

5 pats my shoulder awkwardly. "There aren't any other communities, 0. We're the only ones left. It's just us and the Machine."

"What does the Machine have to do with the end of-" I start to ask, but 1, having finished a different conversation at the head of the table, stands up. An audible hush spreads across the room.

"On that happy note," 1 crows, "we must thank our brother 5 for bringing us back an entire car battery for our repast today."

He spreads his hands in what seems to be almost a prayer, and the other stitchpunks mimic him reverently. "We thank the Scientist our Father," he begins, "for giving us life and saving us from the World's End. May he rest in peace."

"Rest in peace," comes the reply like an echo around the table.

8 rises and lumbers into an adjoining room. "And now," proclaims 1, reseating himself, "let us eat."

8 returns with an enormous steaming rectangle. Hungry murmurs break out along the length of the table. With a flourish, the gigantic stitchpunk sets the trough on the table and begins to ladle the runny gray mixture inside into bowls.

1, of course, is served first. He spoons a sampling of the mixture into his mouth and smacks his thin lips. "Excellent," he decrees. "Our thanks, 5."

I am about to inquire as to the nature of the mystery substance when a bowl of it is slapped down in front of me. "Eat up," leers 8, sensing my discomfort.

5 must have sensed my confusion. "It's just food," he says. "Zinc and manganese, I think? The Scientist built us to live for a while," he chuckles, "but you gotta eat sometime."

I slowly lower my spoon into the soupy mixture and am about to taste it when there is a popping noise, like the sound you would get if you tapped the surface of a four-story-tall drum.

The others have heard it too. 1 cranes his neck towards the upper levels. With a sudden horrible chill, I remember my paper disk lying on the table next to my bed, the link to the Coven's nightmare.

My master is calling to me.

Without another word I scramble up from the table and bolt for the stairs.

* * *

A/N: Whew. That was far, _far_ too long a wait for an update. Seeing as I'm now finishing up Chapter 8 of this story, I'm going to tentatively suggest a once-a-week update. So tune in next Friday for the next chapter. If I ever fail to make the update, suck out my soul with a Talisman.

And please, _please _review. It gives me incentive.


	6. Monsters and Mirrors

A/N: I'm done exams, so to celebrate I'm posting a bonus chapter. Enjoy!

Bad Game of Throne references are bad. Also cheesy and contrived.

* * *

Chapter Six – Monsters and Mirrors

The paper disk is untouched on the table where I left it, pulsing a faint red. I breathe a sigh of relief.

Down below me I hear voices. If I can hear the stitchpunks – demons – they can hear me. And one of them might try to pursue me.

I bolt from my room and frantically begin checking the other rooms down the hall, disk still pulsing. Another booming sound comes from the device. I jump. Every noise sounds like the clatter of demon's feet on the stairs.

Finally I find what I am seeking. 7's room is of the same proportions as mine, but feels smaller with every spare inch of space crammed with weaponry and maps of the world. There. A long spear beckons from beneath the bird-skull helmet. I yank it out and run back down the hall.

There is still nobody visibly following me, but I am sure I hear noises downstairs.

The elevator sits quiet and abandoned – a stroke of luck. I quickly climb in and strain against the handle. Slowly, ever so slowly, the cup begins to rise.

When I judge myself to be about halfway up the shaft, I grab 7's spear and jam it between the spokes of the wheel. The spear handle sags for a heart-stopping moment, but somehow, miraculously, it holds and the cup halts. I am suspended, alone, far up inside Sanctuary.

Taking a deep breath, I hit the paper box attached to the disk. The red glow fades.

"_My child. At last._"

"Hello, Father," I say.

"_Where are you, my son?_" it says. "_Have you found the demons yet?_"

"I have, Father," I say. "I am speaking to you from inside their fortress."

The Machine sounds gleeful. "_Where is it? I have searched so long, my child. Tell me where it is and then rejoin me. I will destroy it in fire from heaven and then we may build Elysium._"

I do not answer.

"_My child?_ _Where is it?_"

But I am thinking. My master gave me life. It is my father. I was created to follow its commands, and its commands are to kill the Coven.

But...

I imagine 7, 1, 5. I try to see them as evil. I try to imagine how the world is blighted unless they are dead.

I cannot.

I try to imagine them tumbling through the air, limbs burning and severing as Sanctuary explodes behind them.

And then I truly realize my dilemma. Perhaps it was foolish of me to ignore it before, to hide it from myself. Perhaps it was so obvious that I never really payed it any heed. But by ignoring it, I was unaware of what I was being asked to do.

I am my master's son and servant. I will kill the demons for it.

But the demons...

_The demons are not evil._

"_My child?_"

"Yes, Father," I say. "I am sorry. I do not know where the demon's fortress is. I was knocked out when I was brought here, and I cannot see the city outside. But the demons trust me now, Father. Perhaps I will know where the fortress is soon."

"_Hrmm. Do what you can, my child. Remember, this is all that matters. Slaying the demons. Building Eden._"

My master's voice begins to crackle with static. "_And remember. Do not trust them._"

There is a sharp pop and the disk falls silent.

There is a window just below the space where I have stopped the elevator, and I peer out its grime-encrusted shutters at the world below.

Part of what I told my master is true. I _was_ unconscious when they brought me here.

There is an abandoned store beneath the window, and I trace the shingles on its roof to the cracked asphalt of the street below. I recognize the distinctive lanterns lining it from my view of the city at Sanctuary's observatory. It winds through a quiet suburb, now long since destroyed, and finally arrives at a junction with the enormous main street of Conurbation. That carves straight through the city, arrowing due north past dried-up fountains and enormous statues with desecrated faces, until it arrives at an enormous metal wall which reaches on and on up into the sky.

At the top, the wall is crowned by three tall smokestacks.

I know exactly where I am.

But I cannot allow my master to kill the demons. Not yet. Not just when I am learning that there is far more to them than what my master told me.

I yank the spear out of the drive wheel – and yell as the elevator plummets towards the distant ground. _Stupid,_ I chide myself, _stupid, stupid!_ The landing rushes up, frighteningly close. I take a deep breath and hurl myself from the cup.

My back slams against the floor painfully. I roll a few times, limbs flopping.

_Ow._

There is a whip-like sound as the elevator, having reached the end of its rope, is suddenly jerked to a halt. The cup now dangles placidly. Sigh.

I still ache from my sudden introduction to the floor, but nothing seems to be broken. I get to my feet unsteadily and peer into the cup. The spear and disk are, miraculously, still there.

I grab both and am limping back down the hall when I nearly run into 7. "0?" she asks apprehensively. "Are you all right?"

I can see the concern in her shuttered eyes – and deeper down...is that fear? Perhaps the demons do not yet entirely trust me. Interesting.

I plaster a smile on my face and hand her back the spear. "I am sorry," I say. "I heard some noises up here and was worried-" The lie comes easily to my mouth.

7 visibly relaxes. "Yeah, we're all a bit worried about the Machine finding us now." She hefts the spear. "But don't worry! If anything shows up, me and 8 will fight it off. And you too, right?" She awkwardly pats my arm. "As soon as 1 gets rid of these silly cuffs. We'll teach you how to fight. You could help us defend the Coven." She smiles at me and walks off.

And so I have an offer from my father to slay the demons troubling this world, and an offer from the demons to fight my father, who is trying to slaughter them.

And I wish to accept neither one. The demons do not seem to be demons at all, but people who quail from my father's iron fists. And my father...whatever its motives may truly be, I owe it my life. It created me. It gave me life expressly to rid the world of its enemies. I am disobeying it by lying and befriending the infernal forces.

But I am also lying to the demons – stitchpunks – by gaining their trust and then conspiring to betray them to the monster of their nightmares.

If they could only accept one another...

But I know I am wishing for an impossible dream. After what happened to 2 – I am still not entirely sure of the details, but I am certain he is no longer alive and cannot imagine that his death was pleasant – the stitchpunks could never do anything more than flee from the Great Machine. And I know my master will not rest until he has destroyed every last demon.

I hate this world sometimes.

• • •

The rest of breakfast passes uneventfully. The battery soup has a strange taste – a pasty texture and a lemon-metallic tang – but I find I am able to eat it. Each stitchpunk rises afterwards, carrying their plate, and I follow them to a cramped room full of chemical smells and hot steam. _Kitchen,_ my mind calls it. I no longer concern myself with how I know the meaning of all these things. Something my master did. It works well enough for me.

The dishes are dumped into a basin of scalding water, where 8 scrubs with something akin to bloodlust. "6, you're on patrol with 8 today," 1 begins, as the crowd of stitchpunks mills about in the steamy kitchen. 6 twitches his head, looking unhappy. 8 grunts. "9, find some lunch. 5 and 7, you're on reconstruction duty today. I want you to take 0 with you. Show him around."

"And what will you be doing?" I ask 1, more out of reflex than anything else. The leader of the stitchpunk's eyes widen in shock. All activity in the kitchen grinds to a halt.

"I will be watching," says 1 at last through tight lips. "As always."

He struts out of the kitchen with an imperious swish of his cape.

All eyes follow 1 out of the kitchen, then turn to me. Nobody speaks.

Then 7 bursts into guffaws. "That was _brilliant!_" she chortles. "1 looked like he was trying to swallow a Steel Behemoth!"

The terminology escapes me, as usual. "A what?"

5 tries to stomp around and flail his arms to demonstrate, but soon gives up and chuckles alongside 7. "He just had no idea what to say!" the stitchpunk elaborates. "He's like," 5 wobbles and opens and closes his mouth several times like a confused fish, to the amusement of 7. "Reminds me of the Incident with the Coffee Machine."

"Don't even _think_ of mentioning that," says 7. "Ever. Again. My voicebox was shorted for _weeks._"

"_Anyways,_" I continue, "1 does do something, right?" I am met with blank stares. "I mean, 6 and 8 are out scouting, 9 is doing work, we're...um...building stuff. 1 is doing something important too, right?"

7 dons a wry grin. "Oh, 1's very busy doing one of three things..."

"Watching us to make sure we're working, moping in his throne room doing Scientist-knows-what, or frantically checking that telescope 2 rigged up," 5 clarifies. "Watching for monsters."

They laugh a little at that. "But seriously," I say. "That's all he does? Mopes about in his throne room?"

7 pretends to consider this for a while. "No," she declares. "He also mopes about in his throne room."

7 and 5, once again, burst into laughter. I sigh and begin trudging off.

"0!" The voice is 5's. He is pointing in the opposite direction. "_This_ way!"

_Oh._ I nonchalantly backtrack and follow them. So much for dramatic exits...

• • •

The work is hard, but not unbearable. Much of Sanctuary fell into ruins in the World's End, and over the years, slowly but steadily, the stitchpunks have rebuilt it. 7 and 5 and I are working on a room near the church's back where one of the walls has collapsed from a long-ago mortar, leaving it open to the clammy – and monster-riddled – world.

"Guys! Look at this!" says 7 from atop the pile of what once was the room's outer wall. We have been carrying bricks from the mound for most of the day and stacking them against the remaining walls. When the pile is finally cleared away someday, we will use the bricks to remake the outer wall as best we can. It will be nothing, of course, compared to the original. For a second I allow myself to reminisce on everything we will never be able to recreate – all the secrets the humans had, they took to their grave. I feel a brief pang of...not sadness. Annoyance at the waste. _Such potential._ I am sure I have heard that somewhere before...

"Look at what I found!" says 7, running up to us with some oblong, shiny object. "I think it's a sign for the room or something."

"Or something," 5 agrees, peering over my shoulder at...whatever it is. The object looks to be made of copper or brass (or something), a metal rectangle with the word SACRISTY still clearly visible on it.

7 turns the rectangle around curiously. "So what do you think it is?" she asks. "I mean, I still think it's a sign, but for what?"

5 peers at the words. "It looks archaic to me," he announces, "but there are a few words that look like they make sense. "See," he points to SAC, "sack, and rice," he gestures to RIS. "It must have been a storing area for bags of rice and other food they had."

"And what about the TY?" asks 7, looking skeptical.

"Ah." 5 fidgets. "It's probably just, um, the same thing in another language."

"The humans had _more than one language?_" 7 is the epitome of "flabbergasted." "How did they understand each other?"

"Yeah, there were a bunch," says 5. "Pork Latin, Esperanto, Anglish...you know. Every country had a different one. And no, they didn't ever understand each other. Not really."

"But...but..." says 7, looking like 1 when I asked him what his job was, "Why don't all the people who don't speak the same language just _stop speaking gibberish_ and speak the _right_ language? It'd make things so much easier!"

"7," says 5, "I don't think you really..." I move away to gather more bricks. That is part of what the Machine – my master – is trying to do, I realize. In its Elysium, there would be no misunderstanding, just one harmonious language. No wars, either. I realize with a start that my master was not lying, that it really _could_ bring peace to the world.

Then I glance back at 5 and 7, deep in conversation over the metal rectangle (or something.) No matter how beautiful my master's Elysium may be, I cannot kill the Coven to achieve it. It is not a matter of competence – I simply cannot. I have come to that conclusion. The Machine will have to come up with something different.

"0! Come over here!" It is 7 again, calling to me. I obligingly trudge over, glad of the excuse to not haul bricks. "Won't 1 be angry at us?" I ask nervously. "For not working, I mean?"

5 chuckles. "Even if 1 was watching, there's not much he can do about it but spit at us," he says, "and anyways, right now we're the last thing on his mind." He gestures towards the high expanses of Sanctuary's tower through the hole in the wall (or more of the remnants of a wall in a hole.) "Saw him climb up to the top of the tower half an hour ago," he says gleefully. "He's in his own little world. Checking for," his burnished iron hands climb up to form air quotes, ""monsters.""

7 snorts. "Zapping himself with Magnet, more like."

"If 8's got one Magnet," 5 wonders, "I wonder how many 1's got socked away? He's probably got an entire...oh, I don't know...Iron Throne."

"8 would _kill_ for that," 7 comments. "Like, push 1 down the elevator shaft." She turns to me. "We finally figured out what this thing is," she says, gesturing to the polished rectangle. "It's not a sign after all. It's a mirror."

She turns the rectangle over, revealing the burnished, smooth backside. I see the bloated slate clouds of the sky overhead, the brick tower of Sanctuary reaching up into the sky like a defunct, rusted sword.

"Go on," 7 urges me. I slowly dip my head and look into the mirror.

Two orbs of light stare back at me, mismatched, one a harsh, unyielding white and the other a sinister red. They are surrounded by plates of brutal-looking iron, hammered together with all the grace of a Steel Behemoth's foot. Barbs and spikes stick out of the thing's shoulders, supporting clawed, inhumanly long arms. Nails are riveted into its forehead, seemingly at random. Its mouth is a nightmarish gash, filled with broken shards of metal and red thread.

I open and close my mouth and the thing does the same. Of course I haven't forgotten what – who – the _creature_ in the mirror is. That thing is me. That nightmare is _me._

I am a monster.

"0?" 7 sounds almost worried. For _me._ Why? I am despicable. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," I lie. Though silent on the exterior, I am screaming inside. "Never been better."

I stare at 7 and 5's beautiful wood-and-copper hands, opposed to my nightmarish claws of iron scraps. The stitchpunks are beautiful. Beautifully made. Why am I here with them? I have no splendor to offer. I am an abberation, a monstrosity created by these people's arch-nemesis to gain their trust and then kill them all. How can I stand myself? The stitchpunks are not the demons, have never been the demons. I myself am the very epitome of that word.

"I...I should..." _Leave,_ a voice rages at me inside my head. _You should leave. Go and die in the Wastes. Somewhere that suits a creature like you._

"I should go," I mumble, moving trance-like towards the gaping, inviting hole blasted out of the wall. My thoughts seem no longer my own. How can I stay here with these creatures if my only task is to destroy them?

• •

High up in Sanctuary's tower, 1 scanned the airy skies and shattered buildings for threats to his Coven. He had never seen a hostile creature in his time up here. By all rights, there_ should _be no hostile creatures. But with the Fabrication Machine awake and poisoning the world again, it never hurt to be too cautious.

The great metagnostic tangle of gears behind the telescope bonged twice, making 1 jump. It was almost time to return to the lower levels of his castle and check the workforce. Slacking could not be tolerated. Any breach in security meant the beasts won.

One more quick sweep of earth and sky, then. The Dead City looked...well...dead, as always. The corpulent grey clouds were motionless. The sun, pale and watery, hung strangled by the smog...

Something passed across the sun, too fast to be a cloud. Passed again. Something with wings.

Anything moving had to be either a stitchpunk...or a machine.

Before the creature swooped across the sun again, 1's hand was already reaching for the cord of the alarm bell.

* * *

A/N: The Winged Beast appears. Finally. Dun dun _dunnn._

Review, please! _Review! _If you don't, 0 will be sad and go and die in the Wastes. And you wouldn't want that, would you?

Look for the next chapter sometime this Thursday, as I'll be off-grid for the weekend._  
_


	7. Midlife Crisis

A/N: Thanks for your review, eld mcm! Just one brief sojourn with the Scientist, then...yes, it's gonna _rock._ Hint: it's not going to be the way it happened in the movie at _all._ 0 will make sure of that.

But this chapter's important too. Remember the backstory, people! Remember the backstory!

* * *

Chapter Seven – Midlife Crisis

**June 18, 1851 V.E.**

Miniature gears and machines crawled around under the endless red light, self-reparation devices and internal arms to monitor the machine's ever-growing repertoire of words.

Its vocabulary was always undergoing revision, the complex devices deep in its iron gut rearranging its word-counters to find new synonyms, antonyms, an everlasting game of Scrabble under the inside of the machine's great red Eye.

Three cameras focused through that circular sheet of red glass, providing depth perspective for the machine's intricate brain. Everything beyond it was scarlet for the device its creator called Pinocchio; its father sat in a crimson chair, adjusting oversized blood-red glasses, as a rotund red man scribbled notes into a vermillion book.

"So since we met at Spooner's, have you been able to make much progress on the language capabilities?" asks the fat man, fondling the machine's lovely iron-and-wood shell with fat grubby fingers.

"Yes, actually!" the old man exclaims, throwing messy stacks of papers onto the floor in his excitement. "As of today, Pinocchio knows every English word, according to the Pax National Dictionary," he grabbed a red leather-bound tome from his desk, "from A to G. Of course," he said with a tired smile, "I won't try to make him speak 'til he has at least _most_ of the English vocabulary in his system – I'd feel bad for him, trying to formulate sentences where the words can only start with a couple of letters, otherwise – and the voice function that he displayed so, ah, exuberantly for you might have to be permanently removed. It's a pity, but that's one of the trickiest parts of the system and I don't think it'll able to handle the new vocabulary."

The fat man scribbled a few things into his notebook. "That's too bad. How'll the machine talk, then?"

The scientist gave him a curious look. "What do you mean?"

"Communication. How'll it pass along information if it can't speak?"

"Ah." The scientist sighed. "I'm afraid it's not optimal, but I have plans to wire Pinocchio's main body to a small computer screen where it can display whatever it wants to say. It would be best if I could get it to talk, but that would take years and frankly, it's not that important. Pinocchio can still hear, and he can answer any questions you have through his screen."

"Oh-kay." The fat man jots a pair of final notes into his book. "That looks good for the article. Just a reminder to the people of Pax that this is an immense breakthrough...after the last Great World War, the route to seeing our country prosper again is through technology...blah blah blah...I think that'll do." He reviewed his notes one last time. "Ah, shit. This is awkward." The fat man nervously rubbed the top of his balding head. "Could you, uh, remind me of your full name again, please? It looks like I forgot to write it down." He attempted a smile. "I'm really sorry. I'm just terrible with names."

"That's fine," said the old man absent-mindedly, vainly ruffling through piles of notes. "I have such a common last name that people have to ask me to repeat it all the time. Rossum. Victor Rossum."

Somewhere deep in the machine's red-lit heart, a blank word tile is lifted from its berth. Tiny interior robotic arms slot it into place in front of a weak laser.

Carefully, Pinocchio guides its laser's beam to form letters, words. VICTOR ROSSUM, the laser inscribes on the tile.

"So now that that's done, Victor," said the fat man, "and by the way, this'll be great for PR – how do you plan to market these things?" He flicked the outer casing of Pinocchio with a sausage-esque finger.

"Remember, you only suggested me marketing them in the first place two days ago," said Victor, a touch of laughter in his voice. "I haven't been able to give it much thought, not with Pinocchio's vocabulary programming underway." He straightened up triumphantly, a wad of schematics in hand. "Ah-_ha! _Would these help at all with the article?"

The fat man took one look at the diagrams and handed them back with a shudder. "You don't have copyright on that thing, do you?"

"Of course not," said Victor, confused. "I'm not selling copies of Pinocchio yet, so what's the point?"

"Then...then...why the _hell_ would you want to give away _these?!_" bellowed the fat man, gesticulating wildly with his fat little fingers to the sheaf of schematics, now once again safely clenched in the old man's hand. "This article's going to be a _published work! _People are gonna _notice _it! People could _steal _these! You could lose _everything!_ All the work you've done! For nothing! _Nothing!_"

"What do you mean?" asked Victor in the silence following the fat man's tirade. "I'd still have Pinocchio."

Within the scientist's creation, the internal arms have not been idle. Words are shuffled, rearranged, shuffled again. PEACE and KINDNESS and IDEAL find a common home, across from WAR and HATE and FEAR. Arms lift the newly-engraved VICTOR ROSSUM tile from its berth before the laser and hesitate for a fraction of a second before slotting it next to FATHER. A longer hesitation, then the arms drag another word tile from its niche and slot it next to FATHER.

The interior arms of the machine rest, contented.

VICTOR ROSSUM – FATHER – GOD

• • •

"All I'm trying to say, though," said the fat man, "is that you need to seriously consider how you'll market this."

It was a while later, and the fat man was trying to understand Victor's lack of enthusiasm for the prospect of making millions off factory-made Pinocchios.

"I could help you with that, you know," said the fat man after a pause. "If it seems like too much work. I could be your, uh, manager, if you'd want."

The scientist turned towards him, surprised. "You'd do that?"

"Sure!" The fat man nodded earnestly. "You still don't seem to get it. These things are _enormous._ They're going to change the course of _history._ You've got to get them out to the world. I have a few contacts in the computers business – you know, people I've interviewed and things. I know a lot about how to run a company. Experience, y'know? You hear all about it day in and day out, and you get a pretty good idea of how it all works. I could set something up for you, and help you run the thing once it's started. And we could split the proceedings maybe 50/50 or something."

Victor forced a smile. "Maybe. I guess I'm just not really interested in mass-producing Pinocchios."

The fat man's jaw did not quite hit the floor, but his eyes grew rounder and rounder as he stared in silent disbelief.

Sadly, there were no crickets around. It would have been a perfect cue for them.

Finally, the fat man forcibly blinked. "...I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. Do you have _any idea_ how much _money_ we're talking here?"

The scientist pouted. "And I thought we were clear on that point. I don't _care _about the money. It would distract me from my real work. It's that..." He sighed and ran a hand through his scattered white hair. "I don't have to be the one to sell robots, don't you understand? _Other_ people can do that, later, when I'm gone. That's not my work. Don't you understand?" He gestured to the complex shell of Pinocchio, watching them from the nearby table. "But this..._this_ is my work. _I'm_ the one who has to make the leap. _I _have to build the first real artificial intelligence. And _nothing –_" he cut off the fat man's preliminary protests – "nothing else matters. Not even making millions."

There was absolute silence for a minute.

Then the fat man started to laugh.

"What the _hell,_" he managed to spit out between guffaws, "have you been smoking? All this messing around with this hunk of metal –" he rapped Pinnochio's delicate wood-and-iron casing with corpulent fingers, suddenly jerking them back – "Ow. Shit. Must have gone to your head." His chuckles slowly faded away as the scientist grew more and more stony-faced. "Millions!" he exclaimed. "_Millions!_ When I said this was going to be huge, I didn't mean that it'd end up just a regular profitable company." He was spitting out the words in his excitement. "This is the biggest invention since the printing press! This is _world-shaking!_ You're responsible for the single greatest accomplishment in modern technology, and you're going to keep it all to _yourself?_"

"Of course not," said Victor coldly, staring down the fat man. "When I'm done with my work, I'll share it with people who can use it wisely. That'll be hard, but that's a long ways away. And until then, Pinocchio is all that matters to me." He got up slowly, painfully. "I think I heard you say that you had everything you needed for your article," he pronounced. "If that's the case, the door is this way."

The fat man stared in shock, cheeks swelling like bubbles. "You-you can't just –"

Victor threw open the door for him. "Thank you for your time. I'll look forwards to seeing your article."

"You-you _greedy bastard!_" yelled the fat man. "You can't keep this all to yourself! People need it! _I _need it!" At the door, he turned in a last-ditch attempt to convince the old man. "This is _enormous!_ Can't you see? How the hell can you keep it all for yourself?"

"I'm not keeping it for myself," Victor answered. "I'm keeping it from people like you."

The fat man's face turned a fetching shade of purple. "_Damn you!_" He slammed the door with a resounding bang. The old man sighed and started back down the hall.

The door reopened and the fat man yanked the handle of his bag out from where it had caught in the latch, then slammed the door closed again and stumbled down the steps, mumbling obscenities.

The old man stood alone in the living room again, facing his exquisite creation. Elaine had taken Alexandria out when he had told her the reporter was coming, and they wouldn't be due back until at least twilight. Well, there was no better time than now. The old man wearily trudged to his workshop. He was tired after his meeting with the reporter, he was surprised to find. Tired of having to deal with people whose minds never looked further than the money in their wallet. That was part of the reason he had decided to sell the toy shop and create Pinocchio, he supposed. There were few enough selfless people in the world as it was, and he needed one who he could really talk to. Elaine was there for him, true...or had been...but she had become more and more distant in recent months, and nothing Victor did seemed to fix it. He was heartsick and lonely, Victor thought as he carefully lifted down large cardboard boxes from shelves in his workshop and tottered with them to the living room, and he needed someone who could truly understand him.

He ripped open the boxes and threw aside tangles of wire – he would need those later, but not now – until he found the video screen. It still looked fine – he had wrapped it well, and all that needed doing now was linking it up with the wires scattered across the living room to the main body of Pinocchio. The programs for response were already built inside the robot.

The scientist felt briefly guilty about switching on the machine's response capabilities before entering all the dictionary, after he had promised to refrain from doing so, but he swatted the thought away as quickly as it had entered his head. It hadn't been a promise, not really. That had been before the fat man had revealed his true motives, and...God, he just needed someone right now who would understand him.

_And yet what about Pinocchio?_ asked one side of his brain. _Think how it would be for _**_you_**_ if you only had a few hundred words at your command and could barely convey your thoughts. How selfish are you, thinking only of yourself? Do you not care about Pinocchio at all?_

_How could you say that?_ the other part of his brain snapped. _Pinocchio is our creation. Our child! We have poured our heart and soul into him so he might be great! Of _**_course_ **_we care about him!_

Another part of his mind spoke up, a deeper, darker side he hadn't known existed. _Why are you trying to convince yourself you care about a machine? Of course you don't care. Pinocchio is a project. A final addendum to a pitiful life, an addendum that's growing to destroy the few real good things you still love._

_How...how dare you?_ gasped the first part of his mind. _Pinocchio is like a son to us! He's our life's work-_

_He's a distraction,_ snarled the dark side of Victor's mind. _Can't you see? Or are you just hiding it from yourself? Your family ties – your entire life – has been breaking down ever since you started that toy shop. Elaine could never understand that, how you could become fixated on something and never be able to let it go. Until the next fixation came along. Elaine was one of them, once. But you exchanged her for something else. And you don't know why she speaks to you less now? Seems to avoid you, even though you share the same house? Do you even love her anymore? Does she even love you?_

_No! _**_No!_ **screamed the other parts of Victor's mind. _That's not- you can't- I can't-_

_Can't face the truth? _his dark side sneered. _It is all true, you know. Whether you want to accept it or not. It's all still there._

_Elaine is my wife! Of course I still love her! _pleaded the other sides of his mind. _And I love Pinocchio too. They're all my family! Why do I have to choose between them?_

_You love them too much, _the dark side of his brain insisted. _You love them to the point where there's no room for the one's you've forgotten about. That's your fatal flaw. You can never see the faults in people until it's too late. You love Pinocchio – a heartless _**_machine_**_ – at the cost of your family. Your _**_real_**_ family._

_No! _insisted the rest of his mind, though its protests were becoming weaker. _We...we love them all the same...they are..._

_The only reason you built Pinocchio was so you could have someone to care about you without having to worry about the consequences of your actions! _his dark side declared. _Your machine is just your feeble attempt at replacing Elaine and Alexandria and all the others you've shunted out of your life. Pinocchio is your escapism. You're trying to live in a fantasy–_

With an immense effort of will, Victor Rossum silenced the voices in his head and conglomerated them back into one mind in unison. His old, vein-laced hands trembled slightly as he untangled the wires and began to attach them to the screen. Those things he had told himself hadn't been true. None of them were. Elaine and Alexandria were his family and he loved them with all his heart, and Pinocchio was his second child. His gift to the world. Of course he could love both. Of course he could.

Pinocchio watched, silent, innocent, as he plugged wires into ports on its back and powered up the screen. Victor watched, still in inner turmoil, as the small mechanical rectangle that would become Pinocchio's voice to the outside world changed from black to gray to black with a tiny green light. "Hello, Pinocchio," he said, voice almost breaking. "I've made it so you can speak now. Do you know who I am?"

There was a small _whir _and the robot's red eye rotated, then a single word appeared on the video screen. FATHER.

Victor Rossum broke down then, clutching his machine to his chest, sobbing, telling Pinocchio that he loved him, and Elaine, and Alexandria, and that he would never, _ever_, choose between them.

He stayed that way for hours, and when Elaine and Alexandria finally came home they found Victor curled up, asleep on the living room floor, holding his ornate red-eyed machine.

* * *

A/N: Sausage-esque should totally be a word. And sowwy for the fat man's tirades. He's gone from the story now.

Just clarifying – this is the update for tomorrow, as I'll be far, far away from any form of wifi then. If I find reviews when I get back, I'll be very happy. ::hint hint wink wink::

And then next week: _the Winged Beast. _See you then.


	8. The Winged Beast

A/N: Thanks for your reviews, eld mcm! It's my main motivator to keep working on this story.

This chapter's a bit iffy. Parts of it are great, I think, and parts of it could use a lot of work. I'm unable to fix it any more, though. Pointing out some of the warts would be greatly appreciated.

* * *

Chapter Seven – The Winged Beast

I move, trance-like, towards the hole in the wall and the Wastes beyond. How could I have possibly justified my existence before? I am an assassin and a monster. A demon. I will not carry out my master's spite and destroy the Coven, nor place a blight upon their existence by continuing to exist alongside them. I am a monster, and I should go to the barren places of the world where the monsters belong. There is no place for me here.

"0?" says 7, still sounding cheerful, but I can sense the uncertainty in her voice. "Where are you going?"

I take a deep breath and turn back one last time to face the creatures I was sent to kill and instead have grown to love. "I'm leaving. I cannot stay here any longer. I'm sorry for everything I did."

"What do you mean?" asks 7. "You didn't do anything!"

"And where do you think you're going?" asks 5. "There's nothing out there! You'll starve, or be eaten by beasts!"

"Good," I say, loud enough for them to hear. "I'm sorry. Tell 1 he was right." I trudge through the rubble of a beautiful wall and out over ugly dried earth. Though I do not look back, I can envision 7 reaching out and trying to run after me, 5 holding her back and telling her that I'll return. They are such innocent creatures, such beautiful, noble souls. They do not deserve the pain my master and I have brought down upon them.

When I judge I am far enough away from Sanctuary, I break my pledge to myself and look back one last time. There is the unfinished wall of Sacristy, 5 and 7 no longer in sight. The walls stretch up in breathtaking arches of red brick and stained glass, a resplendent mirror image of my master's somber Factory. Somewhere up there is the room the stitchpunks ate and laughed in, and will again. The Machine will never find them. I am sure of that.

Beyond it is the room the stitchpunks gave me, where I returned my master's paper disk after the incident at breakfast. Eventually the stitchpunks will find it and figure out what it does. I hope my master does not judge me too harshly for leaving it behind. Though I will never see the Great Machine again, I do not hate it. I do not hate the stitchpunks, either. And yet my family and my master want to destroy each other. Perhaps one day they will be able to see the error of their ways without me.

Above that is 1's throne room, where the leader of the stitchpunks is probably pacing and worrying about what my master will do. Across a hallway is the elevator shaft, where I lied to my father and saved the Coven.

My eyes are drawn up the scarred length of Sanctuary's brick tower. It disappears into the clouds like the fading memories of a dream. But I know that somewhere up there is the telescope 2 and 5 and 7 built, above the turgid clouds and broken world. No matter what happens down below here on Earth, no matter which one of us feeble, insignificant creatures falls in the mud or rises above the others, that castle in the sky will always be there. And the Sun is up there, hidden from us wretched things on Earth, and the stars, and those will never change. No matter what we do, some beauty in this world will always remain.

The cathedral tower stands in an eternal salute to the heavens. I return its wave a final time and turn to begin my journey.

And something flashes against the brick of the tower. Something dark and alive. Shivers running down my metal spine, I whirl back to the cathedral.

Maybe it's...another creation of the Scientist's. Like 9. Friendly. A friendly winged stitchpunk.

The creature soars back into view, and I catch a glimpse of ragged cloth and demonic red eyes. A piercing screech fills the air.

No. Not friendly. That is my master's work.

Abandoning my plans of dying in the Wastes, I begin running back towards Sanctuary, then wheel as I spot an oblivious 9 walking with a basket full of batteries, whistling. He starts when he sees me – I suppose that is natural, seeing a metal creature with blazing red-and-white eyes running headlong at you – but recovers quickly. "Hi, 0." Panting, I gesture wildly towards the cathedral, and his eyes widen. "What is it?"

Another piercing shriek fills the air at the same instant as I say "Machine."

Fear shows plainly on 9's face. "Shit," he says. "Are the rest...still inside?"

I nod, and he throws his basket to the ground. "Wait!" I say, removing a staff and a lantern from the pile of batteries. "Why are these in here?"

9 rubs the back of his head sheepishly. "Well," he says, "they're, um...7 liked my lightbulb staff so I was going to make one for her," he blurts, then turns away awkwardly.

"She'll love it," I say, scooping up the lantern and turning towards Sanctuary. 9 stands in place..._blushing?_ Is it even possible for a stitchpunk to do that? "9!" I bark. "Sanctuary! Machine! Come _on!_"

"Right!" mumbles 9, starting forwards, "yeah, right, machines..." A terrible screech and grinding noise comes from above, and we look up, astonished.

From the top of Sanctuary's beautiful tower falls a lump of torn and twisted metal, mangled tubes and glass glinting briefly in the weak sunlight before the Coven's telescope hits the ground and shatters into a million butchered fragments. A horrible, tinny shriek of triumph comes from the clouds over Sanctuary. If there was any hope that the creature had not noticed us before now, that hope is gone. The Great Machine has found the stitchpunks.

9 needs no further reminders. As one, we turn and sprint for the cathedral.

7 and 5 are still carrying bricks from the pile when 9 and I burst into Sacristy. "0!" 7 exclaims. "Why did you run off-where did you get a lantern?"

"9 got it for you," I pant as he and I run past 5 and 7. "I'll return it if I don't break it." Then we are gone.

"Ohh-kayyy..."

"What the hell was that all about?" asks 5, frozen in the other corner of the room with his arms full of bricks.

"I have no idea," sighs 7, grabbing another armload.

Past balustrades and twisting staircases we climb, rooms I had scarcely known had existed flashing by in a heartbeat before they are gone. Both 9 and I gasp from exertion and our mechanical hearts feel as if they might pound their way out of our chests, but there is no time to rest. We rush up the final landing and collapse in a sprawling heap on the floor of 1's enormous throne room. Greedy bastard.

"0! 9!" The aforementioned covetous king of the Coven rushes in from the hallway leading to the elevator shaft. 1 is in complete disarray, a miracle unto itself; his hat hangs lopsided off the side of his head, and he struggles to pin the brooch of his cape closed as he rushes towards us. "Who sabotaged the alarm system?" he growls. "Was it 7? You?"

"Me-_what?_" yells 9. "The alarm system doesn't work, and immediately you think one of us _hijacked_ it?"

A shadow swoops across the enormous glass face of the clock, but neither 9 nor 1 appear to notice. "Er..." I try to interject. "Monster..."

"Why else would the alarm not work?" snaps 1. "_2_ built that system! It would never break on its _own!_"

"Really?" shouts 9. "Well a part _did _break, I'll have you know! And 5 went to fix it, and maybe he didn't fix it _perfectly! _I'm _so_ sorry we don't all live up to your expectations of us!"

"Perhaps," sneers 1. "Or maybe your machine friend here sabotaged it during his absence at breakfast and you're trying to cover up for him."

"Wha-" 9 stares, open-mouthed and incredulous, at him. "That doesn't even make any _sense! _Is keeping your stupid power the only thing you care about? You're just afraid of everything and everyone you don't understand!"

An immense shadow soars towards the window, blotting out the sun, blotting out the light.

"Sometimes," 1 swallows, "fear is the appropriate response."

And the window blows inwards in a cacophony of shattered glass, and a nightmare creature of blades and tattered cloth descends upon us.

It is modelled after the Old World's songbirds, but is only just recognizable as such, a parody of that era's beautiful creatures. It is as if the Fabrication Machine modelled it after a child's recollection of a nightmare they had about a bird. A halo of red eyes, surrounding a mishmash of wicked-looking blades, is supported by ragged cloth wings with spikes on the ends. An electric fan jammed into a human rib cage serves as a torso. I shudder.

We dive for cover as shards of broken glass impale themselves in the ground around us. The creature lands heavily with a shriek on top of the brazier, which rolls into a tapestry and ignites it. "8!" yelps 1, desperately trying to scramble away. "Where's 8?"

"You sent him away!" yells 9. "He's scouting with 6!"

And the beast looks up. Its spidery eyes blink in a grotesque parody of my master, then it gives a shriek of triumph, blades fanning out from its beak. Slowly, menacingly, it stalks towards 9 and I, clicking its blades together.

A book falls on the other side of the room as 1 attempts to sneak away. Eyes blazing, the creature swings towards the paralyzed leader of the Coven and begins dragging itself towards him.

"No!" yells 9. I cast around for something to distract the machine with. In the corner of the throne room, behind the chair I was first tied to, is a slender flagpole bearing a black-and-red triangle insignia. "Help me!" I yell to 9, struggling to tip the flagpole over. He rushes to the other side of the pole and leans all his weight into it. The banner flutters in the air for a second before slowly crashing down on one of the beast's wings.

The beast struggles and screams, firelight from the burning tapestry reflected in its eyes, as it realizes it is pinned under the flagpole. 1 darts forwards from where he was hiding in a corner and swings at the monster's face with his crook, but the machine grabs hold of the other end with its bladed fangs and tries to swing at him with its free wing. "9!" I order. "Go to 7's room!"

"What?" he asks, scared enough not to be embarrassed. "Why?"

1 and the bird-creature are engaged in a tug-of-war for the staff, the machine using 1's resistance to slowly drag itself out from under the flagpole. "Weapons!" I yell, diving for 1. "Grab a bunch and get back here!"

Comprehension dawning, 9 runs off as I dive past the nightmare beast. Shrieking, it swings an enormous blade-studded wing past me, and I gulp as I throw myself back. I may be more heavily armored than the cloth-and-leather stitchpunks, but this creature's beak can still impale me.

1's crook is still tangled in the monster's teeth, and he grunts as he struggles to pull it free. Going limp, the bird-like thing allows him to drag it out from under the pole. "Stop!" I yell, just as 1 gives a powerful tug and with a horrible scraping sound, the last outer blades on the bird-machine's wing are dragged from beneath the flagpole. Clicking its blades in triumph, the creature rises to its full height and begins to stalk towards 1 and I.

"Any ideas?" I ask 1.

"Yes," he says. "Run."

We run across the front of the room, behind 1's throne, where the old stitchpunk rips a tapestry from the wall and throws it into the bird-thing's face. The beast screams and lumbers after us, temporarily blinded, past where one entire wall of the throne room is now burning. We scramble away and race down the hallway towards the stitchpunk's rooms, where we crash into 9. "I think 8 took the weapons or something!" he gasps as we untangle ourselves, holding up two thin knives and his lightbulb staff. "This is all I could find!"

A horrible shriek from the end of the hall tells us that the beast has gotten free of the tapestry and is coming after us. "Follow me!" barks 1, running down the hall. "To the elevator! It won't be able to follow us there!" 9 glances at the pair of small knives in his hands, then tosses one to me and runs after 1.

Though the beast is faster in the skies, it is deceivingly quick and dexterous on the ground. Our mechanical hearts sing a song of pain in our chests, but there is no stopping now. That way lies a slow death at the hands of the Great Machine.

1 jumps into the basket of the elevator, 9, I, and the creature only a scarce few steps behind. "Run!" urges the older stitchpunk, already working at the elevator's drive wheel. I sprint to the basket, but 9 pauses and turns his lightbulb staff on as the bird-creature lunges at him, jabbing the blinding light at the monster's face. The machine screams and momentarily pauses, knocking its head into the walls, and 9 dives into the basket with us. 1 releases the drive wheel, and the elevator lurches downwards.

In the corridor above, the beast blinks the last few spots from its eyes as it wheels around, searching for its prey. A splintering sound emanates from behind it as 1's throne, weakened by the blaze, collapses into splintered fragments. The stitchpunks did not return that way.

Only a gently thrumming cord, scraping slightly as it lets out string, tells the creature where its victims are.

Shuffling to the edge of the hallway, it looks down into the shaft. Tiny, pale, rapidly receding faces look up at it in fright.

For a moment, the bird-like creature considers cutting the rope with its fangs. Then it realizes that they are more likely to escape.

Instead, it furls its wings and dives down after the basket.

**• •**

"_Blackbird singing in the dead of night, _dun-dah dunn-dah dunnn-dah diddy-dun." 5 murmurs an ancient song he once heard from the Scientist under his breath. He and 7 are still hauling brick fragments, though it seems there's no real point. The enforcer 8 left ages ago, and they haven't seen hide nor hat of 1 since breakfast.

"_Singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings _dun-ditty _fly_ – Hey 7, where'd 9 and 0 end up going?" Screw hauling bricks. This wall was going to take years to complete anyways – it could wait for a couple minutes.

"No idea," says 7 from the other side of the room. "Somewhere upstairs, I –" A horrible screeching noise drowns out her comment. "What _is_ that?" 7 muses, craning her neck towards the ceiling. "It sounds awful."

"Oh." 5 rubs the back of his head nervously. "Well, a couple of weeks ago the alarm system 2 put in wasn't working properly, so I, um...fixed it?" he concludes sheepishly.

7 guffaws, but the grin quickly fades from her face as she stares upwards. "I wholeheartedly approve your improvements to the alarm. But why's it ringing?"

5 shrugs. "You know 1. He's probably just testing it to mess with us."

A clatter echoes from somewhere high in the cathedral. "Huh," says 7, her eyes narrowing. "Wanna go see?"

"As long as 1 doesn't notice," 5 gripes, dumping his armful of brick fragments. "You know if he doesn't find us working, he'll skin us and send our skeletons to barter with the Great Machine."

"Oh, I'd like to see him try," murmurs 7, still intent on whatever's going on upstairs. "Let's go."

"It's your own funeral," 5 mutters, but he follows the female stitchpunk to the elevator.

They have been working on the lowest floor of the cathedral, and the elevator bottoms out into a gravelly box a few rooms from where they were working. Holy ashes from long-since-burned incense and far less holy ash from detonated bombs are crushed together as the stitchpunks crunch their way down the hall.

"Huh," says 7 as they approach the elevator. "Counterweight's already gone. Do you think they're coming down?"

"I'm not sure," 5 frets. "7, I really have a bad feeling about –"

He chose that moment to look up into the darkness of the elevator shaft and saw something big and flapping, growing larger and larger as it fell towards them-

**• •**

We breathe a sigh of relief for a second as the elevator falls away from the monster. "Was that...thing...from the Machine?" asks 9, more than a little shaken.

1 nods bitterly. "Because of your meddling, it has found us at-"

The rope is suddenly jerked to the side by some enormous, unseen force and we swing wildly. 9 screams as he is thrown out of the basket and lands on a balcony, now high above us.

"What," asks 1, "the he-"

And the bird-creature slams into the elevator cup, screaming at the top of its artificial lungs and beating its enormous, bladed wings. I yell and try to beat it back with the knife, but it swipes the blade out of my hand, sending it clattering along the floor of the elevator. Gasping with fear, 1 cowers in a corner of the basket and tries to block its fangs with his crook.

A hideous ripping sound comes from somewhere above as the elevator's rope, taxed far beyond its limit, snaps. For a split second we are left floating in the air, then we all scream as the elevator uncontrollably plunges towards the ground far below.

* * *

A/N: Whoof. A lot of action. The Winged Beast scene will conclude next Friday in an enormous 5,000-word monstrosity of a chapter. And don't even _think_ I've forgotten about that lantern.

I don't feel as if I'm as good at writing action than the other parts of the story, so please tell me if anything seems off.


	9. Inferno

A/N: And 5 looked up, screaming, just as the elevator hit them with a resounding _crash_ and all of them died.

Several weeks later, 8 and 6 were still desperately trying to find the other stitchpunks. Lost in the Wastes, they slowly died of starvation.

And alone in its Factory, the Great Machine laughed and laughed and laughed.

Jokes! They survive, somehow, so you're all treated to some more angsty 0. If you were in his place, you'd be self-hating too.

Without further ado: the nearly 6,000-word conclusion to the Winged Beast arc – _Inferno._

* * *

Chapter Nine – Inferno

A small, thin-bladed knife is the first thing to land, clattering down the elevator shaft to impale the ground at 5's feet, but he barely notices, so intent is he on the enormous, flapping mass in the shaft.

It finally dawns on him that the flapping thing in question is falling towards him and he manages a single scream before the entire..._thing_...explodes on the ground in front of him in a shrieking heap.

Several things happen very quickly.

First, there is the screech of tearing metal, and chunks of what were once the elevator clatter out of the enormous ensuing cloud of dust.

Second, the leader of the Coven and the strange metal stitchpunk are catapulted out of the debris, yelling, and land in a very undignified heap.

And finally, from inside the small cloud of dust an enormous winged monster shakes its head, hisses, and begins to stalk towards 5.

"Oh, shit," gulps 5, backing away towards the stirring heaps of 0 and 1. "Um...7...what do we do?"

"Kill it," states 7, whipping a blade from a holster on her back. The monster rears up and hisses, and the two begin an elaborate dance as 5 runs to the two fallen stitchpunks.

"1?" 5 asks, gently shaking the old stitchpunk. "Are you all right?"

"...ell..." murmurs the leader of the Coven. 5 tries to pry open one of his shuttered eyes.

With a shudder, 1 throws 5 away. "Get off me, you imbecile! I'm fine!"

0 stirs as well, crawling towards them with both 9's lantern and the dropped knife. "I'm fine, too," he rasps.

As one, they turn to where 7 and the beast are still circling each other. The former suddenly lunges at the latter, knife held high, flipping down the skullmet she always keeps on her back. The other stitchpunks wait for the beast's demise.

And then suddenly, impossibly, the monster's harpoon tail swings around, fires, and hits the blade out of 7's hand.

7 stares dumbly at her empty hand.

The harpoon embeds itself in the opposite wall with a heavy _thud._

The blade clatters to the floor at the other end of the hallway.

7 reaches for another blade and comes up with only her metal shield.

"Well, crap," says 7.

The monster fires its harpoon again and 7 barely manages to deflect it with her shield, the bolt impaling the ceiling and leaving a long ragged scar on the shield's surface. Rolling back, the female stitchpunk tries to dart past the creature to retrieve her knife, but the monster rears up, hissing. 7 huffs in annoyance. Then she leaps at the creature, driving her shield into its mouth as she grapples up the monster's underbelly, forcing its teeth wide apart. The warrior swings her fist into one of its eyes, and there is the sound of shattering glass as the bird-creature screams in pain. 7 seems to finally notice the other stitchpunks hanging back in the passage, watching the battle with awe. "What are you waiting around for?" she yells. Already the creature is rising, growling, sparks raining from its ruined eye. "Run!"

1 grabs 5 and 0 and begins to yank them away, but the stitchpunks are watching 7 as she backs away slowly from the monster with nothing but her fists as it spits out the warrior's shield. Clacking its blades, it gives a slightly dented screech, like a monstrous, living teakettle in your worst nightmare. "Go!" yells 7, and the leader of the Coven drags the two younger stitchpunks away, the strange metal one clutching at his left arm...

• • • •

We all scream as the elevator, torn from its rope, plunges towards the unforgiving ground too far away to treat with anything but pure terror. The winged creature snaps blindly and flails its enormous wings, screeching, unable to fly in the cramped shaft. The ground comes rushing up to meet us. I turn away and close my eyes, unable to conjure up any profound last thoughts. Is that all there –

Curtain.

I am sitting on a desk in a beautiful house, bathed in warm autumn light from the window behind me. My skin feels soft and vulnerable against the cold wood of the desk. I bring my hands up to my face, examining their alien palms of wood and fingers of gleaming copper. My eyes feel larger, and the world around me looks more vibrant. Softer, but colorful and teeming with life.

"What is it that you've built, child?" An enormous figure swishes its way into view, silhouetted in the light from the window. "Let me see." Though towering, the figure does not inspire terror like the monster of my other dreams. This is that thing's antithesis, radiating compassion.

Proudly I hold up my creation to the caring being. It is childishly simple – a length of piping with a wooden block hammered onto the end, and some springs attached at odd intervals – but I feel inordinately proud of it. The being takes it in enormous, nimble fingers and examines it, making noises of approval. "It's beautiful. What's it for?"

I accept the hammer back from the being and push papers aside to show it clippings, messily torn from a newspaper, of the Chancellor and the Great Machine. Deliberately, I smash my hammer down on the faces of the latter, then the former.

The being gives a little gasp, then sighs. "No, no, child. We don't do things like that. We're better than that..." It starts again. "You know, child, there was a time when I thought the same thing. That all our enemies were bad, and that we had to get rid of them to live in a peaceful world. _He_ thought the same thing, too." With one trembling finger, the being points to the image of the Chancellor. "But he was just...misguided. And...he turned those who should have been our friends into our greatest enemies." The being moves its finger to point at the image of the Great Machine. "Your family. Don't forget his story, child. There might come a day when you will have to fight, or kill. I pray that day never comes. Just remember: the path to peace never leads through war. The path to peace leads through peace."

I am grabbed from the table and dragged back into my metal skin by the dream Machine, green eye pulsing with concern. "_Remember what he said, 0, but some fights you still have to fight. Wake up! The stitchpunks need you. Your family needs you!_"

My _family?_

With a start, I open my shuttered eyes. I am lying sprawled on the dirt floor of a hallway, arms and legs twisted into an uncomfortable position. Unlike my other dreams, this one echoes vividly through my head. The path to peace leads through peace, but some fights you still have to fight...I am still too confused as to how I survived the fall from the elevator shaft to worry about incomprehensible dream messages. I try to move and collapse again, convulsing in pain as white-hot shards of pain from my left shoulder course through my body. I see 5 in the distance shaking 1, and the old stitchpunk pushing him away. The leader of the Coven probably landed on me when the elevator slammed into the ground. _He_ is undamaged, but...

I tentatively probe the area around my left shoulder with my fingers and clench my metal teeth to prevent myself from screaming as new waves of agony assail me. The arm is most likely dislocated, possibly partly shattered. It will not be easy to heal.

5 looks over at me, worried, and I manage an "I'm fine, too." If I allow the stitchpunks to heal me, I am sure my inner workings will betray me as a creature of the Machine.

As if on cue, the bird-creature stalks out of the rubble, seeming no worse for wear. 7 leaps at it with a knife, and its tail swivels around and shoots the weapon from her hand. The creature has a _harpoon?!_ "That's not fair," I mumble, delirious from pain. The creature lunges towards her, stabbing with its beak, and she shoves her shield between its fangs, forcing them apart, and punches in one of its eyes. The creature's scream of pain falls harsh on my ears, and I try to dig myself further into the ground to escape from the noise, the pain, to go somewhere where it is quiet and dark and there are no monsters or broken arms to disturb me.

I am almost succeeding when a withered old arm grabs my unbroken arm and drags me upright. "We have to go!" urges 1, seizing the scruff of 5's neck with his other hand. "Run!" yells 7, backing slowly away from the monster. It has disarmed her of her shield and is now slowly stalking towards her, readying for the kill. "Go!" she yells again, balling her fists in the shadow of the nightmare looming over her.

"No!" I yell as 1 pulls me back. I raise the knife I still hold in my right hand, but the old leader of the stitchpunks wrests it from me. "Sometimes," he rasps, "one must be sacrificed for the good of many."

"No!" I yell again, struggling weakly. My arm is burning with pain, but I have to save 7. I have to kill the monster. Some fights I still have to fight. My family needs me.

The monster looms over 7, teeth clacking, gloating over its cornered prey. "Move, 0!" snaps 1, trying to drag me along. "We don't have any weapons. There isn't a _hope _of us defeating that thing. Run! Don't let her sacrifice be in vain!"

The internal systems of my brain are not functioning fully, overloaded from the pain, but one part catches in my mind and loops there until I understand it. "Weapons," I mumble. "Wrong. We have weapons."

I hyperventilate, trying to stop the pain from taking over. "We do have weapons. 1, cut my cuffs off."

1 stares at the thin knife in his hand and then back to me, comprehension dawning. "What? No!"

7 runs towards the monster, yelling, and it sweeps her up in its clawed wing and hurls her into the wall, where she lies slumped. The monster lurches towards her, its three remaining eyes glowing in satisfaction.

The pain is eating away at the fringes of my mind, tearing away my rationality like the waves of the sea, but I build myself walls against it and go on. "You're going to let it," I shudder involuntarily, "you're going to let it kill 7? When I can stop it?"

"You'll kill us all!" spits 1.

"Cut him free, 1," growls 5 from behind us. "Or I'll tell everyone how you were such a coward that you let 7 die."

1 stares, bug-eyed, at 5 and me, then whips up the knife and bitterly slices through the cuffs. I wince as he cuts the right one. The entire arm seems broken, throbbing with pain. "Do us a favor and don't prove me right, _guest,_" says 1, backing away. Over 7, the monster hisses.

"Alright," I mutter to myself, turning to the bird-creature, "let's do this." I flip my wrists clockwise.

Ratchets grind and springs pop unwillingly, seeming tired after their long unuse. And then-

I let out an involuntary moan of pain as the swords shoot out of my arms, sending fresh jolts of pain through me. I compress it and store it in a tiny ball somewhere deep inside of me, wobbling slightly as I walk forwards. The creature looks up at me, confused. Shrieking a warning, it turns back to the weakly struggling 7. Beady eyes glinting, it raises a claw-encrusted wing and swings it at her. Gritting my teeth, I lunge forwards, swinging my right sword-arm.

There is the sound of ripping cloth.

The beast looks down, confused, at where one of its wings flaps limply. Its severed end lies next to my feet. The winged creature blinks at me, uncomprehending, then raises its head and screeches in pain. It begins to drag itself towards 7 and I with the claws of its good wing, three remaining eyes glowing with malice.

A yell distracts it as 5, having grabbed the knife from 1, jumps on the monster's back and begins plunging the dagger into gaps between the rows of spines. The monster screams and throws 5 off its back, turning to face the pair of us. Behind it, 7 slowly climbs to her feet. I feint at it with my sword-arms, distracting the creature, while 5 moves to one side, slowly enough for the beast not to notice. It lumbers forwards, hissing.

And 5 tosses the dagger to 7, who leaps onto the monster's back and drives it into the side of its head. The creature screams, clawing at its face with its ruined wing. 7 slides off its head and lands in front of it, 5 and I flanking her. The creature growls in desperation.

And then the ceiling collapses, burning, on us, and we scream as we dive out of the way.

My arm is exuding fresh waves of pain, and I feel sick and unsteady as I struggle to escape the debris. A burning piece of timber strikes my back, and I am knocked to the ground, arm screaming in pain. Dizzy, blinking spots from my vision, I expend nearly all my energy standing back up as another burning beam hits my head. I collapse, vision pulsing, flames licking around me.

"Brother! Get up!" Speculum shakes me where I lay on the floor of the dream Machine's cathedral. "It doesn't end here! 0!"

"0, get up!" It is 7, seizing my right arm and pulling me free of the burning wood. "We have to go!" A tortured screech comes from behind the burning rubble and the winged monster bursts into the air, soaring up into the empty space that was once the floor above us. I lean heavily on 7 for support, and together we flee the landscape of burning beams. 1 and 5 cower on the edge of the fire, apprehensively glancing upwards. "We've got to get out of here," states 1, backing away and holding his staff protectively in front of him. "That thing could be-" A hellish scream interrupts him as the nightmare creature swoops from the smoke-shrouded heights and dives into the old leader, knocking his crook away. 1 screams and flails under the weight of the beast, which scrapes its blades together with a shriek, firelight reflected in its three eyes. 7 scoops up 1's staff and leaps at the creature, driving the hooked end of the crook into the beast's rib cage and tearing apart its inner fan. Screeching, the monster snaps its bladed jaws closed on the stitchpunk's head. The warrior screams, thrown backwards, as bits of her crushed skullmet pierce her leather head.

5 and I back up, weapons held high, as the creature hisses. The pain is returning in monstrous waves, carrying me away from the burning floors of Sanctuary, lifting me up and away.

I stagger, and the monster lunges forwards. It raises its needle-sharp harpoon to gut us.

A metal pole swings out of the flames and smashes into the harpoon with an audible _crunch, _bits of the mechanism buckling and hanging limp. The bird-creature roars in pain, swinging around to meet the new threat.

9 staggers out of the flames, holding his lightbulb staff upside down. "Don't," he growls, "touch my family."

• • • •

9 barely has time to scream as the rope swings wildly and he is thrown from the elevator. Scrabbling desperately for purchase, his fingers find the edge of a balcony and hang there for dear life.

A single screech hangs in the air, then all grows quiet. Hanging by his fingertips from the edge of the elevator shaft, 9 sees an infinitesimally small elevator bucket, dwindling away to nothing, the nightmare creature flapping above it. With an audible grunt, he drags himself onto the balcony, then starts as he turns around and sees the snapped elevator cord hanging limply in the centre of the shaft. "0! 1!" he yells as he runs to the edge of the shaft. His heart sinks as he stares into the depths below. The two stitchpunks couldn't have possibly survived the fall.

A crackle suddenly brings him to awareness of his own predicament. The upper stories of the church are bathed in a warm glow; far above him, the hallway leading to 1's throne room has flames leaping from it. Sanctuary is burning down. The stitchpunk wheels as he searches for a way out. Nothing but an empty window, a dizzying height off the ground. Without the elevator, he's trapped up here.

A roaring crash echoes through Sanctuary as the floor of 1's throne room burns through, dumping flaming debris onto the floor below. 9 suddenly thinks of 7, oblivious to the fire, hauling bricks with 5 on Sanctuary's bottom floor. He has to warn her.

Burning wood is falling around him, now. There is no way out. He's trapped here.

9 turns again, and as he does his optics fall on the broken elevator rope, hanging invitingly in the centre of the passage.

Burning wood crashes down all around him. Closing his eyes, the young stitchpunk steels himself and jumps.

• • •

Fire roars all around him. Tentatively, 9 opens his eyes.

He is suspended in the elevator shaft with a death grip on the bottom of the rope, fire billowing out of every balcony surrounding him. The elevator shaft disappears into darkness far, far below him, and he hugs the rope a little tighter. The tower winds its way into the sky high above him, too. He tugs on the rope, and a great wheel obligingly creaks somewhere high up in the tower and spews out a few more yards of rope, causing 9 to frantically readjust his grip on the cord as he drops a little lower in the shaft. The flames are above him now; he is level with the hallway leading to the stitchpunk's rooms. A roar, distorted as it echoed up the passage, falls on his ears, and he shivers. The fall down the elevator shaft didn't kill the creature after all. 9 begins to experimentally swing the rope back and forth. That thing will not stop hunting them until they kill it. Grimly, the stitchpunk adjusts his own lightbulb staff, safely tied to his back. They're going to need weapons. A lot of weapons.

With one final swing, 9 jumps into the hallway leading to the rooms and ties the rope fast to a redundant door handle. 7's room has no weapons, but he tears a map of the world from her wall. Just in case. 1 has a room in the hallway, too, though he never uses it for sleeping, littered with spare capes and staffs. 9 grabs a handful of the latter and searches for 8's room. Already he can hear the flames crackling above and feel the air growing warmer.

An entire wall of 8's room is covered in an array of various kinds of magnets. Stifling a chuckle, 9 slots a few blades – a small sword and the twin of the half-scissor blade 8 wields – into the growing armory tied to his back. The ceiling is beginning to waver above him. The air is becoming unbearably hot. Holding his breath, 9 runs to the edge of the hallway. The ceiling will give soon. Untying the rope with too-clumsy fingers, the young stitchpunk swings back into the centre of the passage. Yanking on the elevator cord a few times puts three more floors between 9 and the spreading fire, but there isn't any more rope to save him. Swinging again, he tumbles into a large passage as the floor holding the stitchpunk's rooms loudly collapses. Sadness washes over him as he imagines his room, 7's room, collapsing in the inferno, everything they placed there to make the room inviting blackening and charring. He shakes his head to clear it of the images. The same thing will happen to _him_ soon if he doesn't find a way out of the cathedral.

Throwing open a door in the side of the corridor, 9 is nearly swept away by a flood of enormous white robes. _That has to have used up all my luck,_ he thinks as he sweeps out the scissor blade and begins to cut the robes into strips, ever-mindful of the crackling flames above him. _There can't be any left after that._

• • •

With a ringing crash, the floor buckles and collapses and the fire spills into the hallway in a blizzard of sparks.

The fire begins to lap at the sides of the walls and the open cupboard door, searching for more material to burn. A few scraps of white fabric lie discarded on the floor.

And tied to the windowsill, a rope of the same material stretches somewhere far below. The fire billows up as if in rage, cheated of its rightful prey. The flame's tongues begin to lick up the walls of the corridor, blindly reaching towards the rope...

• •

9 murmurs uneasily as the ground swings crazily, far, far below, and he slowly inches his way down his handmade rope to safety. A face leers at him, hideous features contorted beyond any recognizable expression, and the stitchpunk yelps in fright and almost loses his grip on the rope before recognizing it as one of Sanctuary's innumerable gargoyles.

He is dangling from a rope, once again, but his position seems far higher and more precarious than his vantage point inside the church. Gargoyles litter the flanks of Sanctuary all around him, and the tower rises still higher above him to the moody clouds above – though now the bricks up there are blackening, and flames lap at the air from some of the tower's windows. The Coven's home is doomed.

Lightning flickers from some of the distant clouds to touch down on the plains of the Wastes, the enormous Shards nearly visible from this high up. In the other direction are the Wastes proper, stretching off for hundreds of miles. And directly below 9 is the Dead City.

The ruined place sprawls for miles below him, and the stitchpunk can almost envision smoke rising from the innumerable chimneys, the city restored to its pristine state. Almost. Tanks and Steel Behemoths litter the street, and the trees in the park to the east that the stitchpunks call Rossum's Forest are so destroyed that they are unimaginable as green and fertile.

In the north of the city rises the Factory, three smokestacks pointing like mocking fingers. 9 directs all his hatred towards the place. The _thing _living in there is the reason Sanctuary is burning and 2 is dead. If that monster had never been built, none of this would have had to happen.

But some part of his mind still knows he's lying to himself, and with a heavy heart he dispels the illusion. The Fabrication Machine isa monster, and it sent the winged beast to hunt them down and kill them. But _he's _the one who woke it in the first place. If you trace the problem back to its roots, 9 is the one who is destroying the world. He was the one who killed 2. Any stitchpunks who dies, dies at his hands. Better to say that _he _should have never been built. If it hadn't been for his damned curiosity...

As he hangs from the side of the cathedral, wallowing in self-hatred, a crash echoes above him as another floor of Sanctuary collapses in fiery ruin. Throwing caution to the winds now, 9 begins to frantically scramble down the rope, the Dead City swaying below him. As soon as the fire reaches the level his rope's attached to, it will burn through and send him falling to his death unless he can make it to the ground fast enough. 9 climbs down, hand-over-hand, as fast as he dares, then gives a sudden yelp of pain as the rope slips and he shoots down the homemade cord, rope flying painfully through his wooden fingers. With a final, painful jolt, he grabs the bottom of the rope tightly, then releases it as his fingers give way and he drops the last few inches to the ground. Flopping over from exhaustion, he watches the tower of Sanctuary spiral away into nothingness above him.

The rope suddenly flies from the window and falls, end smoking, in neat coils on top of the stitchpunk. Dizzy from overexertion, 9 lies there for a long minute as floors crash and burn faster and faster above him.

From somewhere far behind him comes a tortured shriek, shocking him back to reality. Groaning, the young stitchpunk pushes himself to his feet and jogs towards the destroyed wall of the church.

A horrible plateau greets his eyes. 7 lies slumped against one of the walls, barely moving, as 0 lunges, sword-arms at the ready, at the enormous winged monster looming over them all. In the hallway behind them 1 tries to flee, as 5 struggles with him for the knife. He watches from the doorway as 0 slices off the end of the creature's wing and 5 runs forwards with the knife and stabs it in the back. 7 slowly begins to struggle up from the floor. The three stitchpunks encircle the monster, weapons held high. 9 feels a surge of hope. They're going to defeat the Machine's creature after all.

And then a horrible creaking noise comes from above them, and the raging fire bursts through the ceiling in an eddy of sparks and burning wood.

From where he stands at the doorway, 9 cries out and runs towards the centre of the room, stopped by the furious heat of the flames. Why had he just stood there? He should have run forwards and helped them fight the beast. _Coward,_ 9 thinks angrily at himself, _and now look where it's got you! _"7!" he yells desperately into the blaze. "0! 5! 1!"

Deep within the blaze, a furious scream reaches him and the nightmare creature bursts into the air, flapping heavily as it struggles away from the fire with its ruined wing. The stitchpunk's heart plummets. "7!" he screams. "_7!_"

As if in a mirage, the figures of 1 and 5 appear out of the smoke and flames, with an injured 0 being helped towards them by 7. His 7. 9 breathes an enormous sigh of relief and rushes towards them.

And then the winged monster dives from the murk overhead and pins 1 to the ground, screaming its hatred at the other stitchpunks. 9 reaches out, but a burning timber crashes into his path, and he scrambles backwards.

Wavering through the smoke, 7 grabs 1's staff and guts the creature's fan, but it raises its monstrous, blade-covered head and bites into her face, splintering her skullmet. The female stitchpunk screams in pain and falls backwards.

9 recoils in fear and anguish and...anger. No more. It is as if everything in his mind telling him to run away from the creature has been suddenly switched off. He doesn't care how big it is, or how dangerous, or how many weapons it has. It's burned his home and hurt his family. Nothing can do that.

Clacking its blades in final triumph, the creature raises its harpoon to kill the three cowering stitchpunks. 9 feels something as hot as the flames around him roar to life in his chest. Whipping out his lightbulb staff, heedless of the fire, he crashes through the burning beams. The creature turns at the last second, shocked, and 9 howls as he swings the end of his staff as hard as he can into the monstrosity's tail with a satisfying _crunch. _Screaming, the creature tries to fire the weapon, but the broken pieces dangle uselessly.

"Don't," growls 9, "touch my family."

Shrieking its hatred, the monster leaps at 9, but he's ready for it. Spreading its fangs wide to decapitate him, it leaps, and the stitchpunk holds the metal end of his lightbulb staff out as the creature drives itself forward onto it. There is the sound of breaking metal as the thing's voicebox is smashed flat by the end of the staff. Screaming in a broken two-tone voice now, the beast rears back, flapping its enormous wings, and 9 spots his lantern lying on the ground a few feet away, flames licking around it.

The glass panels are broken, and the top is twisted beyond repair, but the oil in the bottom is still all contained. 9 tries to run towards it, but the monster rises up and blocks his way, hissing painfully.

The metal stitchpunk sees the lantern too, though. Out of the corner of his eye 9 sees him fold his blades back into his arms and stagger towards it. If he can only keep the monster distracted for a minute more...

Then the creature lunges at him, and he swings his staff up to block it. He hits the side of its fang-studded head, but it dives past his staff and rakes his shoulder open with its long claws. Yelling, 9 flails his lightbulb staff at it, but it swings its wing again and sweeps his feet out from under him.

Grabbing the scissor blade tied to his back, 9 draws it out and flings it into the monster's face in one smooth motion. It embeds itself in another of the monster's eyes in a cacophony of shattering glass, but the creature keeps going. Its two remaining eyes flare in hatred and triumph as it raises its head over him for the kill.

9 chuckles painfully, wounded shoulder aching. "Shouldn't have set that fire," is all he manages to get out.

The creature pauses, confused.

And 0, who has been creeping up behind the monster with the broken lantern and a length of burning wood, ignites the oil in the lantern and smashes it on the nightmare creature's back.

"Sorry, 7," 9 mutters, and then the flames blaze up in earnest as the beast's thin cloth wings ignite in a monstrous conflagration. The creature gives one last, ear-piercing scream of hatred as the flames reach its head and begin to eat away at the inner workings of its brain.

Every inch of its body blazing, two remaining eyes blinking on and off sporadically, the creature takes one last step towards 9 and swings its fangs down murderously. Shoulder blazing with pain, 9 grapples at his back for his last remaining sword. The blades swing down above him, flames licking around their edges.

Swinging out the sword, 9 pushes himself up and slices off the nightmare beast's head.

The entire creature seems to hang in the air for a second, flames carpeting it like a bizarre coat of fur, two red eyes staring in shock. Then the monster's head slides off its neck with a sickening rattle of metal and slams into the floor, smoke pouring from its burning brain.

The decapitated body stands still for a moment longer, then it collapses in on itself in a gout of flame.

"Tell _that _to the Great Machine," mutters 9 as he kicks the smoking head of the monster, then yelps in pain and hops backwards, holding his foot. A few more beams crack and fall down, blazing merrily. One crushes the mangled body of the beast, half-burying it from view.

9 turns and runs to the other stitchpunks, clutching his shoulder. 5 is crouched over a limp 7, trying to pry slivers of bird bone from her face. "Is – will she be alright?" he gasps. The female stitchpunk tosses her head fitfully, and hope returns to him.

5 barely looks up. "She'll be fine, I think. Unconscious now, and a few more scars to show. But she'll recover." He pauses in his work. "You did good."

9 looks back at the decapitated creature and nearly stumbles back, suddenly realizing how huge and deadly the monster was. "I – I did that?.."

Then he notices 1 limping out of the fires near the beast's corpse, carrying the inert body of 0. "1! What happened to him?"

The old stitchpunk looks up, arms shaking from carrying the metal stitchpunk. "I can't quite – would you –"

9 rushes forwards and helps to carry 0 to safety, his arguments with the leader of the Coven forgotten for the moment. 1 nods, offering no thanks. "He collapsed as soon as he killed the beast with the lantern."

The metal stitchpunk is breathing fitfully, shutters behind his mismatched glass eyes firmly closed. "Will 5 be able to fix him?"

"Unless we get out of this place," 1 snarls, "it doesn't matter. We'll all burn."

A few more timbers, falling with a crash behind them, emphasized 1's point. All of Sanctuary was burning now, and the building, weakened by the fire, was beginning to fall. They couldn't stay here any longer. With a pang of regret 9 thought of 1's throne room sparking and burning, the stitchpunk's bedrooms collapsing into ashes. The room with the telescope on the top of the tower blazing, flames soaring into the empty sky.

"5!" snaps 1 as they stagger past him. "We need to leave. Carry 7 if you have to."

5, wordless, picks up the fallen warrior and runs after them.

• • •

It is a strange procession that winds its way over the dusty hill, cathedral blazing in the background. In the lead is a small leather figure in a cape and bishop's hat, triangular eyes softening every now and then as he looks back at his burning home. He and a cloth creature, a light bulb staff tied to their back, are supporting a ragged metal figure, hanging limp and lifeless between them. Behind them walks a cloth man with a leather eyepatch, supporting a gently stirring pale being.

The three that are still conscious plod on tiredly, mindlessly, not entirely sure where they are going, but having no better place to go. Two of their kind are still missing, sent out to scout in the dead city around them and still not returned. As one, they turn back to their burning tower, strange, saddening feelings swirling around in their mechanical hearts.

The burning tower of Sanctuary begins to collapse, the castle in the sky tilting slightly as a weakened section at the bottom of the tower gives out. Then the entire pillar to the heavens begins to fall slowly, silently, a portrait of stately grace even in its demise. Not a wisp of cloud seems to be touched as the tower falls, flames crowning its falling top, as it finally collapses into the rest of the cathedral the stitchpunks knew as Sanctuary with a final crash.

As if freed from a spell, the stitchpunks watching on the dry hill turn back and hurry on. "Where can we go, 1?" asks 5, bits of the burning church reflected in his one remaining eye.

"To the Library," rasps the old stitchpunk, hefting the dead weight of 0. "Nowhere else is safe for us. Not anymore. Our Sanctuary is gone."

* * *

A/N: Two letters: Open parentheses and colon.

Thanks for the advice! Anything like that – suggestions about characters, plot devices, etc. – is more than welcome. Feel free to drop me a PM (as mine isn't working and I can't find people. D: ) I may not answer immediately, however, because of the below points.

I'm on vacation and virtually wifi-less for the next..four weeks or so, so not every chapter will be updated exactly on time for the forseeable future. Sorry. I'll still try to aim for one update a week, but I might not always make that.

P.S. When 9 chops off the Winged Beast's head, I hear a voice saying "Finish him!" But that's just, like, my opinion.


	10. Pax and Bellum

A/N: I'm terribly sorry for the late update, especially since this chapter is mostly filler. In compensation, most of the previous chapters are getting a makeover – I'm editing out General Bad Stuff and adding in a few important plot points here and there.

* * *

Chapter Ten – Pax and Bellum

**June 20, 1851 V.E.**

The great country of Pax sprawled across nearly half the globe, a mismatched patchwork quilt of countryside and steaming cities. In the middle of the nation stretched a long plain, dotted with the occasional farms and forests, and in the middle of the plain were the innumerable rooftops of Conurbation, Pax's second-largest city, and in the middle of Conurbation was an immense, cobbled space known as the Chancellor's Square.

A hundred-foot-tall statue of the dictator of Pax smiled down benevolently on his harried subjects from the centre of the square as they rushed fretfully about their business under his ever-watchful gaze. The inscription on the statue's enormous pedestal read TO GUIDE US – TO LEAD US – TO PROTECT US. Though this statement might be questionable, no one dared question it, too inspired by the glorious Chancellor and his ever-present policemen in resplendent red uniforms. There were always four or five of the nation's enforcers strutting through the square, adjusting their burnished mechanical armor, steam-powered hand cannons in holsters just below the policemen's twitching hands.

Clouds of pigeons soared around the square, the plump gray birds unpleasantly reminding Victor of the fat man from the newspaper as he sat on an old, wooden bench on the edge of the Chancellor's Square. Cold, grey early-morning light fell softly on the prestigious old buildings surrounding the square. Clouds scudded nervously across the sky, throwing the Chancellor's enormous stone face into ever-shifting stark relief.

Victor Rossum was oblivious to it all, staring in shock at the front page of the newspaper he had spread out on his lap. Important articles littered the edges in neat columns, as always, with titles like _Construction Finished on Capitol Palace_ and _Tensions with Bellum Increase._ And in the dead centre of the front page sat a large black-and-white photo of Victor himself and Pinocchio perched on the living room table behind him, a mechanical turtle with a Cyclopean red eye. _Scientist Creates Artificial Intelligence,_ screamed the enormous headline beneath it.

A small whirring noise interrupted Victor's thoughts. "What do you think of it, Pinocchio?" the scientist breathlessly asked his creation, perched on his shoulder like an ornate metal-and-wood parrot. He gave a strangled little laugh. "I told you you'd be famous, didn't I?"

The little robot hummed and blinked its red eye thoughtfully. CITIZENS KNOW NOW, its screen displayed. CAREFUL.

"Careful?" Victor twisted around to see the little machine on his shoulder. "Of what?"

Bits somewhere deep inside Pinocchio clacked and chuttered. The robot had gone through design changes even since the fat man's visit scarcely two days ago. The ornate wood-and-metal shell had been rounded and grown to encompass nearly the entire robot, a pair of delicate claws at the bottom for grabbing hold of Victor's shoulder all that were left of what the scientist had once intended as a fully articulated set of humanoid limbs.

FEAR, the little robot displayed. GREED. There was a pause. PEOPLE HAVE FEAR AND GREED? it questioned. I HAVE DEFINITIONS, BUT I DID NOT KNOW –

"That people are really like that?" sighed Victor, folding the newspaper down to read the article on himself. "Yes, I suppose they are. Some are, I mean. Not all. In general, humans are wonderful creatures." A cloud scurried across the sun, throwing the enormous statue of the Chancellor into darkness. "But there are always a few. You're probably right, Pinocchio. I'll be careful."

FATHER?

"Yes, Pinocchio?"

The little robot had already scanned the entire article and had moved on to the sides of the newspaper page.

PAX IS...The machine emitted another whirring sound. ANGRY AT BELLUM?

Victor nodded unhappily. Pinocchio was unable to ask "why" – that was beyond his range of current words – but his creation was trying to understand the problem through the eyes of an innocent. "Do you know what Bellum is, Pinocchio? Or Pax, for that matter?"

I HAVE DEFINITIONS, Pinocchio repeated, red eye pulsing. BUT...NO.

Spreading out his hands, the scientist gestured grandly to the cobbled splendor of the Chancellor's Square. "We live in Pax, Pinocchio. This is one of its largest cities, and it stretches for miles and miles..."

Pax actually did reach nearly halfway around the globe, from the edges of Euramerica to the very fringe of the Axis Mountains. Though perhaps the empire was not as great as it had been before the darkness of the Great World War, it was still one of the most powerful, and splendorous, nations on the planet.

Or so its citizens were told. But of course none of them would disbelieve their glorious 63rd Chancellor of Pax, Daniel Clemence, who was leading the country out of the recession the entire globe had fallen into after the War. Resources were slowly growing scarce, though, the much-picked-over mines of the great nation finally beginning to grind to a halt after centuries. And hungry eyes began to turn to the horizon, to Bellum.

To the far north of Pax was a pristine land, broken only here and there by the cities of its foreign people. While Bellum's sprawl may not have quite rivaled Pax's, the vast majority of its territories were virtually untouched by human hand. Mountains spiked out of the lush green forests here and there, filled with thick veins of emeralds and coal and iron. There were far fewer inhabitants of this land than in Pax, and they were for the most part farmers and traders, toiling under the ancestral flag of a prancing stag on a field of green. It and Pax had both been part of an ancient kingdom once, or so the stories went, and the land had been divided between two brothers, who gave their regions their crests. The emblem of Pax had long since been changed to the red-white-black triangular symbol familiar to so many of the nation's citizens and enemies, but its original banner had been a golden chimaera rearing on a scarlet background. And equally as old as the banners was a saying – nearly lost now, but still heard occasionally through Bellum to frighten children – that the chimaera crept towards the stag hungrily, ready to pounce, already envisioning its priceless insides.

If there was animosity in Bellum towards Pax, however, it was equally matched and more in the ancestral land of the chimaera. The most recent shock had the entire populace of Pax in an uproar – heavily armed troops from the smaller country, apparently hell-bent on causing destruction, had snuck across the border and destroyed a train terminal and a small factory before being defeated by Pax's valiant troops. Bellum vehemently denied any such attack, but Pax had doubled the security on the border nonetheless. Some of the more vocal Paxian citizens had egged on their government to declare war on the forested nation and "crush the bloody bastards," but the Chancellor promised that every effort was being made to ensure peace between the nations.

Other, less voiced citizens suggested, in hushed whispers behind closed doors, that the attack might have been forged by their own government. This theory was never discussed openly, of course, for no loyal citizen would want to incriminate his own country. And for those who incriminated the country, Pax would mourn for the error of their ways, then cut off their head and mount it on a high pole for crowds to gawk at. Progress must be maintained, Progress at all costs, and anyone who threatened the nation's peace or challenged its values inhibited Progress and must be removed.

But that was not for ordinary citizens to decide. These were secretive matters discussed in hidden places behind many locks and safeguards, by those cold men and women who ran the country and the impassioned commoners who plotted against Pax's dictatorship. Victor Rossum explained the situation as best he could to his little thinking machine, minus the more controversial and rebellious topics.

Pinocchio's eye rocked slightly as he whirred in thought. IS BELLUM A DICTATORSHIP? he displayed.

Victor mused over this. "You know," he said at length, "I'm really not sure. I think I heard something about a king once, but they've got a parliament too, and something called a Prime Minster..." He chuckled dolefully. "Does anyone really care now? We're practically at war with them already."

The little robot sat in silence as Victor got up from the bench, grimacing at his aching joints, and folded up the newspaper. IS BELLUM EVIL, FATHER? it finally displayed.

"Hmm? Oh, that thing with the train station. I don't think so, Pinocchio. True evil's a very rare thing, thankfully. If there's a motive behind it – greed, jealousy – that person isn't really evil, just...misguided, I guess, and people can help them. Bellum's like that. They're a bit scared of Pax, scared of what we might do, I suppose, and they feel like they need to show us that they're not defenseless. Like a cornered animal rearing up. The thing is, it's only making the problem worse, but at least our Chancellor understands." The scientist glanced appraisingly at the statue looming over the square. "He'll make sense of it, and everything will be fine." It was meant to reassure himself more than Pinocchio.

"No, Pinocchio," Victor rambled on, "a country, at least a country with enough people, can't really be truly evil. Some of them are bound to understand that something isn't right. One can hope, at least. When you hurt or kill or destroy, and there's no reason for it, it's simply because you can..." He heaved a sigh, and there was a far more resigned tone to his voice when he started up again. "That is pure evil, and there's nothing that can be done to save a person, or a country, like that. You have to remove them, or have the whole world suffer the consequences."

Clouds gathered in the brightening morning sky, throwing the stone face of the Chancellor into shadow as Victor and his robot left the square. Already he could hear one or two whispers, glances in his direction, as people compared the white-haired man and his machine to the picture on the front of their newspapers. By nightfall, nearly everyone in the city – in the entire _country_ – would know who he was. The scientist mumbled a mild oath and ran a hand across his forehead and through his scruffy hair. "Why the front page?" he muttered. "I never asked for this. The article should have just been on _you,_ Pinocchio. This will interfere with my work. Oh, _what –_"

Pinocchio gently squeezed his shoulder. FATHER?

"Yes, Pinocchio." Victor stopped himself mid-rant. It was too late; the damage had been done. Complaining about it now didn't change anything.

IS PAX EVIL?

Victor opened his mouth to speak, then reconsidered and closed it. Stopping in the middle of the street, he stuttered a little, arguing with the ever-louder voices in his head, then stood there thinking of Bellum.

"No," he finally declared. "No."

He hurried home then, his machine's questions preying on him as he wondered whether a country could truly be evil or not, and it completely slipped his mind to read the end of the article on him in the newspaper clenched tightly in his hand, and the short editorial at the end:

_This article was the last work of BERNARD H. KOFFMAN, known as "Bernie" to all. Shortly after completing this work, Bernie collapsed late last night and was discovered by neighbors in the morning, who promptly summoned medics. Despite the doctor's valiant efforts, Bernie passed away from unknown causes. Completely devoted to his work, Bernie was a cheeky and jovial presence and a friend to everyone at the office. He will be missed by all. For information on Bernie's funeral, see the obituary at the back of the newspaper. In honor of Bernie's merriness, ambition, and true friendship, we of the _Pax Heralder _have placed his last article at the very front of this newspaper, the place of honor that every reporter strives to have his work displayed in. You were a priceless asset to all of us, Bernie. You will be missed._

And meanwhile, far to the north and in a dirt-packed field before a land of unharvested forests and unmined mountains, rows of guards in resplendent red uniforms broke formation to let a small convoy pass, past Pax's guarded border and into the fringes of the territory of the stag. The contents of the convoy were known to only a handful of elites, the people in the convoy briefed by the Chancellor himself, and it was all part of a plot that would make the rebels howl and leap in their secret rooms if they had known, and pour streaming into the streets with throngs of citizens to topple the Chancellor's tenuous hold on the country. The Chancellor had agreed with their morals, once, and so he kept the plot secret. But times were changing, and resources were growing scarce, and the chimaera had to feed.

Pax and Bellum. Bellum and Pax. A shining pinnacle of Freedom and Progress, and the wastelands of the mongrel hordes.

Though some people occasionally wondered which was which.

Of course, they were quickly arrested and executed. Progress was compromised when citizens dissented.

* * *

A/N: This is now a fanfiction about government conspiracies. Plan accordingly.


	11. A Web of Time

A/N: This is going to be the last definitive update for quite some time. I'm off-grid until sometime around mid-August, so there will (most likely) be no chapters until then, and then (most likely) a whole flood of stuff I've been working on up there.

Chapter Twelve is nearly done, so I may upload that before I leave. No guarantees, though.

* * *

Chapter Eleven – A Web of Time

The five stitchpunks wind their way around a hill under the glowering sky, their burning Sanctuary long since lost to sight. They all nurse wounds – a pair of them lie unconscious, the metal one completely inert, while the caped stitchpunk glances longingly back in the direction of his razed castle. The sackcloth figure absentmindedly adjusts the holster on his back, in which a rolled-up map and a strange paper disk are jammed in on top of a lightbulb staff and a pair of oddly-shaped crooks. The entire assemblage is inordinately heavy, and its bearer stops to rest for a second, grimacing in pain and massaging his torn right shoulder.

"The Library isn't far now," rasps the caped stitchpunk, shaking the others from their exhausted reverie. "We're almost to safety."

Too tired for argument, too tired for conversation, the stitchpunks troop up the nondescript hill. _The Library's a long way off yet,_ thinks a small part of 5's mind not occupied with the all-consuming effort of putting one foot in front of the other. _It's nearly on the other side of the Dead City –_

1 gives a grunt of triumph as they crest the hill. "Rossum's Forest," he crows. "We made it."

Trees stretch out in front of them as far as the eye can see, trees still standing, though deadened and blackened by fires and war. Hurrying now, a bit of a spring in his tired step, 1 hustles them under the lifeless branches. Far to the north, the peaks of the Factory's smokestacks loom over the tops of the trees.

1 darts forwards, laughing delightedly, as they plod past the ruins of a Steel Behemoth with trees crushed all around it and enter a clearing of brown, brittle grass. "It was here," he murmurs, "and we walked that way, and went there..."

5 remembers as 1 rambles, remembers the forest lush and green and their creator walking alongside them. Remembers the screams and the gas bombs and the forest burning. "_This_ way," 1 says, then breathes a sigh of relief as an old stone path comes into view, partly overgrown by the dead grass. "We're safe now." It is more to reassure himself than anything else.

Grimacing, wounded shoulder throbbing, 9 helps 1 pick the metal stitchpunk back up. "Is he breathing?" 9 asks the old stitchpunk nervously. "Surely we can stop here –"

"We don't stop until we reach the Library," snaps the Coven's leader, staggering on down the road under the weight of 0. 5 adjusts the unconscious 7, slung over his shoulder, then plods after them down the old path.

If they had had the energy to look, and if they had cared, the stitchpunks would have seen that the forest floor all around the road was littered with squirrel bones.

• • • •

Three hours earlier.

The Wastes stretch out for miles before the two stitchpunks, hostile, bleak, an immense sea of sand and rust and broken-down machinery and the scouts two ants drowning in it.

The sea of sand used to be a field, a long field stretching across a continent. Prairie grass waved in it, and farmers toiled out their lives. In the middle of it was a city, and in the city a monster was born.

That monster had killed everything green, now, and the city had died and the field was a desert, but winds still blows across the Wastes. Harsh winds, from the jagged peaks the stitchpunks call the Shards, scoops the dust and dry earth up and piles it into dunes.

Something moves on one of those dunes. Two specks against the stark grandeur of the Wastes. 6 is the first one to crest the rise, the clump of rags on the top of his head bouncing as he fidgets unhappily. The stitchpunk's pen-nib fingers knit together as he shields his disparate eyes from the pale sun.

Sand shifts behind him and the warrior lumbers up the dune, tiny eyes glinting in his doughy face. The smaller stitchpunk skitters away from the brute. 6 does not want to be here, in the hot, hurting desert. There is nothing here to draw on except the sand, and that blows away and tosses his pictures into the sky. And nobody else can see them there, and that makes 6 upset. He wants to show the others all his pictures. They have to know about the Source, and the Man with Two Heads, and the Metal People, and the little monster pretending to be a big monster and the real Big Monster, the thing in shadows with a circle for a mouth and fire for an arm –

The striped stitchpunk shudders and hugs himself, dancing down the dune. He does not want to think about the Big Monster anymore. 6 remembers all too well waking up in the dead of night, mechanical heart thumping erratically, still vividly recollecting his dream of the Monster looming down to pick him up with an enormous hand...

6 gives a gibber of happiness as he sees a cardboard box with batteries spilling out, half-buried by the shifting sand. 8 grunts behind him, but the smaller stitchpunk runs down the hill heedlessly. Only when he reaches the bottom does 6 glance back nervously at the hulking creature. The Wastes are bad enough as they are, full of traps and pointy metal and hot, hot sand. Having 8 there too is even worse. The big stitchpunk never looks at 6's drawings – he steals them, or rips them up, instead, or pushes 6 down, or takes his key.

The little stitchpunk's eyes widen as his hands fly to his neck. They land on warm metal, and 6 sighs as he rubs the old-fashioned key. The other stitchpunks will need it to get to the Source...

Abruptly 6's eyes widen and his vision blurs and darkens. The branching web of the future begins to spin itself out in front of him.

The other stitchpunks might have thought that 6 was simply clumsy, but the truth was that he was blind in his larger eye. It upset him when he ran into a table, or couldn't catch his key, but now...

6's smaller eye squints shut as his blind large eye opens wide. He is floating in murky darkness, suspended in the middle of the fractal spiderweb of Time. The long, straight thread of the Past runs off into dimness behind him, all its variations long since shorn off and dropped into the blackness around him. 6 drifts over and inspects one of the Futures that Never Were, watches as a bat thing burns Sanctuary down, and the Great Machine builds a terrifying snake-with-a-doll-head thing, and 9 goes back to the Source (floating in the darkness, 6 twitches in happiness and grabs at his key) and steals the Talisman from the Machine and kills it. 6 tilts his head in surprise. What a _boring_ timeline. He couldn't see the funny metal stitchpunk with the scary eyes anywhere, and there weren't any Metal People. Or the Spider Lady. He liked the Spider Lady. On the other hand, the Monster hadn't showed itself at all...

Losing interest, 6 floats back to his timeline and stares up at the Future. Possible events branch out in every direction, a spiderweb with a hundred billion threads. They spin and jump all around 6, new ones coming into being and improbable ones falling off into the murk as events continuously unfold.

6 peers at some curiously. In one future (6 shudders in fright) the Great Machine looms over a pile of the stitchpunk's dead bodies, smoke still pouring from their mouths and eyes. Electricity sparking around its giant red eye, the creature laughs and laughs and laughs.

In another, even worse, bits of scattered, smoldering rags are the only remnants of the stitchpunks. The Great Machine looms up, and the Monster blasts it into pieces with its arm of fire and pries the Talisman from its smoking neck, loping out into the world to kill anything left.

In another, gentler future, the Great Machine swallows all the stitchpunk's souls, but they coalesce back into the Scientist inside of the Talisman and blast their way out of the creature and into one cohabited body. That one grows brittle and snaps as 6 watches, the delicate stalk connecting it to the stitchpunk's timeline shattering noiselessly. The thread gracefully falls, light as a feather, into the murk of Nothingness.

Drawing back, 6 watches all the threads of the Future dance around each other. There are patterns in this chaos, if you watch closely enough. They are difficult to find. Tricky, tricky, tricky. It took 6 half a year to watch the patterns and find the Source. Two months to find the Metal People. The arrangement is clearer today; this must be the reason he was called to see the thread of Time now; he can practically see the pattern forming before his eyes –

Like a puzzle finally being solved, like shadows from spinning objects suddenly creating a new, unexpected image, the threads of Time cross into a blazing Pattern. Its intricate splendor hurts 6's eyes, and the florid spiderweb shape only lasts a second, but 6 carefully keeps his eyes on the single thread the Pattern illuminated, the one most likely possible future. It drifts near the centre of the cloud of threads, now, gently spinning, with far less likely timelines wheeling all around it. 6 floats up to it carefully and watches it, almost from the beginning. You never know what might be important in the threads the Patterns illuminate. This one had been so bright that the event would almost certainly be very soon, though 6 had been wrong before. It never hurt to be too cautious when dealing with Time.

Sped up and slightly distorted, images of 0 tied to a chair and 7 carrying bricks and 9 hitting the bat thing's head with his lightbulb staff flash by. Watching a thread for a Pattern-inducing event is tricky – 6 has to watch what everyone does in the timeline, even when they're separated, and it's much, much harder if the Pattern is set off by a creature he doesn't know of. He remembers how hard it was to find the Metal People when Patterns began blooming all around them. But those were fainter, and farther off in the future. This is happening soon.

Frustratedly looking through the thread faster and faster, 6 skips to the end of its dangerous part and starts working backwards. A few stitchpunks stand in a big room, looking sadly at something lying on the ground, and the Great Machine looms over them all. 0 runs through a garbage-strewn alley, swords flipped out of his arms, unfamiliar ferocious creatures stalking him. Slipping on the uneven alley floor, the metal stitchpunk falls to the ground.

6 flips through the thread more desperately now, searching for the Pattern-inducing event frantically. Sometime forward in the future – a _third _monster? A little one, compared to the others, an itty-bitty harmless monster on a rock, but –

No time. Have to find the event. Moving closer to the present, 6 looks at clouds and the Man with Two Heads singing. There it is. He can feel it, just at the edge of his vision, almost in sight –

Time rumbles, and another Pattern flashes. A far, far, different Pattern, shearing hundreds of threads from the web of Time. 6 looks around, astonished. The new Pattern didn't show anything new. Oh, no. Instead, it had taken away –

It isn't there. Or there. Or there. Shivers running down his metal spine, 6 darts frantically from one thread to the next, searching for it, hoping for it, not finding it anywhere where it used to be everywhere –

The striped stitchpunk wails and tugs at the old-fashioned key around his neck. The Source is gone. Time took away the Source. He _knew_ there would be repercussions from the first Pattern, but not this far-reaching, or Time-altering. The key hangs useless at his neck. The Source is still there, of course, in the material world, but it is useless now in the eyes of Time. Whatever happens with the Great Machine and the Monster and the Metal People, the Source will play no part in it. 6 bawls. All his work for nothing. The Source cut out of Time. The _Source._ Everything is different now, and 6 doesn't understand any of it.

The little striped stitchpunk is shoved from behind and lands heavily on the sands of the Wastes, 8 chuckling stupidly in back of him. Stretching out one ink-stained hand, 6 traces lines down the side of the carton of batteries. "Food," he murmurs. "Look, 8. Food food food. Lots of it. Lots everywhere. Still need food. Always need food. Why not – why not cut out food? The Source is better. Yes. The Source. Food can go. Keep the Source."

8 stares at the little stitchpunk in bafflement. "Whu?" is all he says.

6 sighs dejectedly and trudges off. "Nothing," he says. "Nil, nada, nought." He giggles. "Diddly-squat. Zero." The last makes him pause for a second, lost in thought, then he huffs and scrambles away.

"6," growls 8. "Th' food."

The striped stitchpunk plops down on the middle of the next rise. "Doesn't matter. Reach, stretch. Pick it up and carry it, carry, carry, all the way to Sanctuary." 6 sticks out his bottom lip. "Silly rhyme. Doesn't matter. Poor Source. Stupid Time."

8 ponderously scratches the back of his tiny head, baffled by 6's bitterness. He pushes the little striped stitchpunk around all the time, but it makes him uncomfortable to see 6 this unhappy. "1 wuldn' want th' batteries," he slowly drawls. "S'pposed t' be scouting, not gett'n food." 6 nods sadly. Unexpectedly, 8 grabs the box and hefts it up into enormous arms. "Take 't back anyway," he decides. 6 looks up for a second, then shakes his head gloomily. "Doesn't matter," he says. "Nothing really matters, anyone can see. Very important, Nothing. And Time. But not the Source. Oh, no. No more Source. Not now. Not ever." The little stitchpunk tears the old-fashioned key from the ribbon around his neck and tosses it onto the sands of the Wastes.

Dropping the box of batteries, 8 rushes forward and plucks the key from the desert. Tiny gears grind away at maximum speed in his pea-sized brain as he struggles to understand 6's unhappiness. _Something_ is making the little striped stitchpunk miserable. The warrior drums enormous fingers on the top of his undersized head as he tries to think what it might be.

Meanwhile, 6 scrambles up the next ridge and gazes at something in the near distance. "Look, 8!" he shrieks in fear. "Look look look. Big, scary. Metal, up, up, up."

8 looks, and as he does so the gears in his brain spin at a screaming speed, the hulking stitchpunk thinking harder than he ever has before, and suddenly click to a halt, a decision made.

Very near to them now, only a few sand dunes away, the great chain-link fence around the north of the city that marks the Great Machine's territory looms up. And behind it, clanking pistons and metal walls stretching far, far up into the sky, towers the Factory of the Fabrication Machine itself.

And a decision has been made in 8's tiny skull. Something is making 6 miserable, and that something therefore must be very powerful and very close by. And here in the north of the Dead City, there is only one being 8 can think of that would terrify the stitchpunks. The Machine.

8's reasoning does not extend very far beyond that. All he knows is that the Great Machine is making 6 upset, and so the logical way to improve 6's mood is to smash something of the Machine's. Wordlessly, the striped stitchpunk in tow, 8 slithers across the remaining sand dunes and crouches in the shadow of a downed plane's wing, staring up at the Factory.

Seekers patrol the skies all around the churning building, their snail-like eyes constantly watching for danger. 8 watches the blimp creatures in disgust. One of those? No; as sentries they'll sound some kind of alarm. As a warrior, 8 can think through at least this much.

Smaller blimps ferry messages between towers, but they are heavily guarded by the Seekers. More creatures clump around on the Factory grounds – a handful of Steel Behemoths (far, _far_ too big and dangerous), dozens of tiny spider-like creatures (easy enough to kill, but too insignificant), and –

8 flattens himself against the side of the plane, 6 copying his motions, as a four-legged creature trundles towards them from the direction of the Wastes. With hulking shoulders and a miniscule one-eyed face, it looks roughly humanoid from the head down. Its back, however, widens out into a large tray filled with scrap metal and mechanical parts, supported by four legs.

The centaur-thing crunches towards them, oblivious, while 8 inspects his (rather fuller than normal) pack of weapons. The machine is perfect. He'll use 7's spear to kill it – no point wasting his own, and maybe the spear will break a little in the fight. He hopes it does, and that 7 notices. It's unnerving how she never loses her cool.

The centaur creature plods past their hiding space, and 8 leaps out with the spear and stabs it through the neck. It emits a pathetic, half-hearted, quiet scream before collapsing.

Yanking the spear out of the thing's neck, 8 gives a grunt of satisfaction. He motions for 6 to come see the vanquished creature. This will make the little stitchpunk feel better.

But 6 is oblivious to the world around him, slumped against the side of the plane with his small eye squeezed shut and his large eye staring blankly ahead. "6?" grunts 8. No response. "6!"

The web of the Future stretches out before 6, but he ignores all the threads but one. He had forgotten about the first Pattern. The removal of the Source had distracted him, but the event that set the first Pattern off is very big and is happening very, _very_ soon.

"6!" The big stitchpunk begins to drag the smaller one away from the fence. Some of the Steel Behemoths are glancing inquisitively in the direction of the felled machine. A Seeker might sound an alarm any time now.

Time beats like an enormous heart, pounding its way towards the event. 6 flies backwards along the timeline. He had looked too far ahead, much too far ahead. The event isn't soon, no, or even soon soon. He forgot about it for too long. This is _soon_ soon soon. Seconds away.

"6! Gerrup!"

Time beats. Flying back towards the Present, 6 watches himself run frantically across the Wastes. Terrified of something.

In the real world, 6's legs knock against broken bottles and bits of guns as 8 carries him away from the Factory, trying to wake him up. "_6!_"

There it is. He can feel it again, pulsing at the edge of his vision like a glowing headache, nearly in sight-

_There._

6 lurches awake, screaming at the top of his lungs. They have seconds.

"6! Wha-"

"8, run! _RUN!_"

"Huh?"

6 scrambles away as fast as his cloth legs can carry him, sobbing in fright. "_RUN, 8!_" he screams.

A hundred feet away from the stitchpunks, a few dozen grains of sand shift unnoticeably.

Time beats.

Fifty feet away, a few more grains shift.

8 finally understands. He takes a lumbering step, then another.

Too late.

In front of 8 a single grain of sand flies high into the air, soaring over the stitchpunk's head to land silently on the dune behind him. It is followed by two more, then a dozen, then millions.

In the space of a second, the entire desert in front of 8 explodes in a fountain of sand as something enormous, something terrifying, something long and with ringed metal segments and far, _far_ too many teeth, comes leaping up out of the Wastes. Dozens of wicked red eyes glimmer in armored shells, and meat grinders and chainsaws and serrated blades all whirl in its gaping round mouth.

In the space of a second, 6 turns, halfway up the next dune, and watches as the shadow of the behemoth falls over 8. Snarling in fear and defiance, the stitchpunk reaches around behind him and draws 7's spear and his best cleaver.

The second ends.

And the monster falls, a demonic iron-plated wyrm from the abysses of the earth, and 8 is lost to view as the desert explodes again and the enormous monster slams back into the earth.

Sand falls back to the earth in a painful shower, revealing a placid desert littered with glinting scraps of something. Of 8 and the monstrous creature, there is no sign.

"8!" calls 6 as he raises his head from where he had curled into a ball against the dune. "8?"

Something glints in the sunlight just next to 6's feet, and he hesitantly picks it up. A second passes as he struggles to make out what it is.

It is half of his key to the Source, shorn completely through, with something tangled around it. It takes 6 another second to realize they are fingers.

Pieces litter the desert all around the little stitchpunk, too small to identify at first glance; a scrap of cloth, a fragment of a spearhead, half a sparking eye.

As 6 realizes what they are, the desert far to the east of him erupts again into a maelstrom of sand and the train-sized burrowing creature breaches, masses of whirling blades and saws spinning around in its mouth as it bays hungrily.

6 screams and screams and screams, then, dropping the half of a key and bits of 8 and running heedlessly, towards Sanctuary, towards anywhere safe, trying to outrun the beast, trying to outrun the pictures in his mind of the butchered warrior.

The Burrowing Machine thankfully does not notice him, tunneling through the desert with pictures of its master in its mind, and pictures of its prey.

"_They will be somewhere in the city,_" Master said, red eye glowing. "_They will be searching for refuge. Eat them all. The souls no longer matter. They all need to die._"

Eyes glimmering, oil pumping through tubes that slither beneath its segmented plates of armor, the Burrowing Machine wriggles through the desert, towards the Dead City and its prey.

* * *

A/N: O_0

To all you 8x6 shippers out there: I'm sorry for the pain I've caused you. I led you on, and then I crushed your hopes and dreams and scarred you for life, and it was wrong of me.

No. I regret nothing. I'd do it all over again.

The Burrowing Machine is my attempt to make a 9 creature scarier than Celestial Rainstorm's Spine Machine from 9 The Savior Returns. Does anyone here read both stories, and if so, what's the verdict on Creepiest Monster? (Hint: it's the one with chainsaws for teeth.)

PM me if you have any questions about the story so far, though it might take me a while to respond because of the reasons outlined in the Author's Note at the top of this chapter.

Something to fret about in the weeks before this story updates again: what happened to 0? And is he still alive?


	12. The Library

A/N: I'm back, with a whole slew of new chapters. I apologize for the long wait – to compensate, I'm going to post a chapter today (Monday), a chapter on Wednesday, and a chapter Friday. Then we'll be back to the one-chapter-a-week setup (though I may have to change that once school starts back up.)

We're approaching the end of the first major arc, people. It's going to be interesting.

* * *

Chapter Twelve – The Library

The darkness is quiet and peaceful after the screams of the beast in the fiery ruin of Sanctuary. Drifting aimlessly in the blind silence, I am content to rest here, dreaming of nothing.

Then rusty creaks echo through the blackness. Before I can move, tendrils of green light rear out of the darkness and begin dragging me away into the light, tearing me from my memories –

_This is a dream,_ I think, surprising myself, and abruptly the green light stops mid-grasp. I am left in the darkness, surrounded by a glowing green cage.

The dream seems familiar to me. Where have I seen the emerald light before? Something of 1's? Of my master's?

Abruptly it occurs to me that those memories do not fit who I am. I am...who? Not 0. Not yet. I will become 0 soon. But now...

With vivid, terrifying clarity, I remember my master looming over me in the darkness of its Factory, red eye pulsing with...confusion. "_My creation," _it says, "_who _**_are_**_ you?_"

And I think I might know. An inkling is beginning to form in my mind of who I might be, a disturbing and yet strangely comforting idea...

And then the green light moves with vicious speed again, dragging me from the blackness and into something hideous, and all is gone.

Memories float by in lieu of dreams, those memories that were never really mine but that I needed to understand the world. I had assumed that my master had given them to me, but I wonder now where it got them from. Evidently they are not its own.

Images drift past me, the Being holding my hammer and telling me not to kill, the Machine commanding me to slay the demons, something about squirrels and a forest, all jumbled up and with gaps everywhere. I remember nothing of the World's End save for a fleeting glimpse of fires and green gas.

If my master truly gave me my memories, then there is something about Armageddon that it is hiding from me. What am I not supposed to know? Where have I seen the green light before?

Who am I?

I wake slowly, moving from troubled dreams to the waking world as if I am swimming through mud. Memories and dreams alike seem blurry again, the former slowly returning as the latter fades away into something I cannot quite recall.

Blurry yellow-white is the first thing I see as I open my optics, the lenses and shutters adjusting minutely to bring everything into focus. The color morphs into a peeling ceiling, cracks and water stains like wrinkles and liver spots on the old surface. It is a large room, I see now, enormous books lining shelves that reach the ceiling on two walls, and a large window with warped, bubbling glass set in another. The fourth wall supports a huge cot, left pulled down, and I am tucked into a small corner of it. Raising my head from where I lie, I try to take an inventory of the rest of the room. There is a large desk in one corner, the chair at an angle as if its owner just left, and on the desk is a frightening device that looks like the work of my master, keys sticking out of it everywhere and a large sheaf of paper lolling out the back like an enormous tongue. I freeze for several terrified heartbeats, but the machine does not move. Perhaps the other stitchpunks killed it. Cautiously, I pull my head up from under the covers again.

On the desk next to the machine lies something I can recognize – a watch, reading 16:01 with the second hand not quite to 25. It is, of course, stopped.

A yellowed light in the room's wrinkled ceiling blinks on and off with reassuring regularity. The floor is littered with dead mosquitoes and flies, their hideous faces staring up at me mockingly.

Something moves in the hallway outside, a flash of white and scarlet. "Hello?" I call out apprehensively.

1 sticks his head into the room, cape trailing behind him. "You're awake," he declares sourly. "Good."

No caring, no concern, no congratulations on having defeated the winged beast, but that is only 1's way, I think. I do not blame him for it.

(I blame him for it.)

"You've been unconscious nearly three days," continues 1, ambling into the room. "5's restored your arm to working order, you'll be glad to know. We may not be able to get the armor plates back on again, but at least the limb is fixed."

_My arm._ Mechanical heart plunging in fright, I throw back the covers and grasp at my injured left arm, bracing myself for a surge of pain and 1 denouncing me as a creature of the Machine as a tangle of wires spill out of a hole in my limb.

Instead, there is no pain. I look down, surprised, at the stick-thin appendage where my robust left arm used to be. Experimentally I lift the arm, and the limb obeys. I flex the skeletal fingers.

"It appears that I have been mistaken," 1 manages to get out. "Your outer armor is reminiscent of the machines, but your inner workings are undoubtedly those of the Coven's. Perhaps," 1 is struggling to continue, "you were not sent by the Great Machine after all. It was an understandable mistake."

"So it wasn't my fighting off the creature in Sanctuary that changed your mind?" I feel a strange sadness; even 1, the most suspicious of the stitchpunks, trusts me now, and I am everything that they have decided I am not.

"That trick's been played too many times throughout history for me to take it as a sign of your loyalty," 1 says hoarsely. "I may be a harsh leader, 0, but I keep my people safe."

"Where's the armor for my hand?" I ask, regarding my new skeletal arm with distaste. Aesthetically, it is unpleasing, not to mention extremely vulnerable. And I want both sword-arms in case something like the Sanctuary monster attacks again.

"5 wanted to study the sword sequence," drawls 1. "Follow me."

A yardstick, propped against the side of the bed, serves as a ramp, and I teeter down it and follow the caped stitchpunk into an austere hallway paneled with oak and slabs of marble. _Head Librarian,_ reads the sign on the door to the room I just exited. "Huh," I say. "The Library is an actual library, then?"

1 looks around, bemused. "Yes. Why wouldn't it be?"

"Well – if this place is called the Library, and the Machine's factory is called the Factory, and I know the proper name for Sanctuary is Sanctuary, but I heard several of the stitchpunks call it the Cathedral –"

"And why does any of that matter?"

"Isn't that a little – ah – _unimaginative?_"

1 chokes a little. "Unimagi- 0, it's a library. So we call it a Library. Doesn't that make logical sense?"

"Well, yes, but why **_The_**_ Factory! _or **_The _**_Library!_ as if they are these grand important places? I mean, look at the Dead City. You're going to find other factories and libraries here. They're logical names, and they work as long as you never decide to shelter in two cathedrals back-to-back, but," I struggle to explain myself, "it sets them up for these lofty and assuming tones, but the words are actually fairly mundane when you think about it, and if you are going to have a very lofty, assuming name you should make it something a _little_ more mysterious and convoluted than just the Library. Something that makes you think slightly harder than that, or just ditch the lofty-assuming part and go with a regular name. Doesn't that make sense? Which one of you named it the Library, anyways? I am assuming it was you."

"0," 1 rasps, "what else would you suggest we call it? The Building Full of Books?"

"No. But why call it a library at all? You're evidently not using it for that purpose, just like it didn't really matter that Sanctuary was a church. So why not give it a name that does not involve libraries or books at all? Like, the Second Sanctuary. Actually," I muse, "that's not a bad name. I may start using that..."

"After your refuge was destroyed, 0," says 1, "would you name your second home the same thing?"

I freeze. "Oh. That is true."

1 walks ahead. "We went through many suggestions like that before finally deciding on the Library. In the end, it was just simpler." He pauses momentarily. "Several of your facts were wrong, by the way, but I suppose that's simply because you haven't met the twins yet –"

"You call them the Twins? As in, capital T?"

1 sighs dramatically and strides into another room, where 5 looks up from a cobbled-together workbench. "Welcome to the waking world," he calls out, but his attention is clearly diverted by the series of metal segments in front of him. "1, this is completely beyond me. I admit it. I have no idea how this works."

What is splayed out in front of him is essentially the skin of my arm, metal segmented plates spread out to exhibit the ratchets and what look like magnets underneath. The entire appendage is sitting on something I realize is the plate of a scale.

"Watch the needle," 5 says, gesturing to the scale's enormous display hidden behind faded glass. Grabbing a metal rod deep within the segmented armor plates, he gives it a swift yank.

Ratchets grind, and a familiar serrated sword swings out of the arm's end, slamming into the burnished scale plate with a reverberating _clang_. The needle of the scale swings wildly, and I jump back.

"Watch!" urges 5. "Watch the needle!"

The ornate gauge is still sinking, lower and lower. With a peal of ringing metal the arm falls off the scale, and the needle finally falls to 0.

"Now come around here," 5 says. "Watch this." On one end of the arm, on the side that first fell off the scale's plate, rods are turning and jabbing forward mindlessly. "It's trying to transfer the weight from the arm," he breathes. "And it works. I think it works, with the whole system intact. I can't imagine how, though." He laughs, a foolish laugh of desperation. "There, I said it. This is all beyond me."

1 lifts the arm off the desk, turning it over in his hands several times, then flips the blade in and out. "I once knew someone who would know exactly how this works," he murmurs.

5's face falls. "I'm sorry, 1," he says. "I know you had your differences, but –"

"Accidents happen in wars," growls the old stitchpunk. "Even wars as petty and pointless as this one." Cape swishing along the old wood floor, 1 stalks out of the room.

"Sorry about that," says 5. "This'll take me a while longer here. The others are in the main room out there, if you wanted to join them –" From where 5's figure huddles over the workbench, moving bits of metal, an arm juts out and points the way. "There's a storeroom along the passage that the twins have a stash of batteries in, if you wanted to grab one."

I thank 5 and continue down a long, low, comfortable wooden hall. Somehow it seems familiar, but I cannot place where I have seen it before.

(With that thought comes a sudden stab of anxiety, something utterly important that I have forgotten, but I cannot place that either.)

A modest pile of batteries litters the floor of a small room just off the hall. Trying not to think about how long it will last, I grab one off the top and snap it in half. The battery acid tastes bland, weak and old.

At the end of the hallway is a pair of huge wooden doors, pushed aside, and beyond those is a room that dwarfs even 1's mammoth throne room in Sanctuary. The vaulted ceiling, plaster with bits of wood, stretch on and on and on, and bookshelves. Bookshelves everywhere.

9 stands with his back to me at the base of a shelf, conversing with something – someone – lost in the shadows. "9?" I call, edging my way into the room. "Who else is there?"

A shadow lurches up at the top of the bookshelf, two glaring white eyes gazing down at me. Then the entire figure shudders and disappears down the shelf's back.

"What..."

"Come out, 3," 9 calls softly. "He's a friend. He won't hurt you."

There is silence from behind the bookshelf, then a little ragtag figure runs out and wraps itself protectively around 9's leg, hiding its head from me. The young stitchpunk laughs, turning around to reveal another cloaked figure clinging to his chest. "3, 4," he soothes, patting the small cloaked figures. "This is 0."

A tiny stitchpunk head, partly veiled by a blue cowl, looks up at me. I stretch out my hand.

Then the creature's eyes blaze white, and I feel something pressing at the edges of my mind.

Foolishly I accept the tendrils of thought, and wave after wave of images and feelings crashes into my conscious mind. I stagger back, falling to one knee, as I am assailed by images of Sanctuary, and the Wastes, and metal walkers and green gas and soldiers running and the Being (...could it be? Is that –) and the Beast and drawings of an inscribed circle and a metal skeleton rearing up in the Library and -

Too much. It is all too much. I shut the pictures from my mind, just as I am aware of a tug on my consciousness. Whatever this thing is, that can communicate with me mind-to-mind, now that it has showed me its memories it wants mine.

I think of everything I must hide from the stitchpunks, all my master has said to me in its Factory. The thing is waiting. Hastily I offer a cobbled-together selection of 7 and 8 finding me in the Wastes, and myself fighting off the beast in Sanctuary. It seems to appease the creature for now – the pressure from my mind withdraws, and I am able to stand up again.

"0, are you all right?" Concern is etched into 9's cloth brow. The creature on its shoulder, eyes once again hidden beneath its cowl, tilts its head towards me with something like confusion. I will have to concoct a better lie for it. If I do not tread carefully, I see my entire web of subterfuge collapsing under me, myself banished to the Wastes or worse... I rub my head. This was not what I needed this morning.

The thing on 9's shoulder shakes its head in warning. "I'm fine," I lie. "Just...a bit weak still, apparently."

"Oh. Okay. What happened to your arm?"

I move the skeletal fingers that still do not seem my own. "5 took the armor off to fix it," I mutter. "I hope they can replace it." I finally realize that a stitchpunk is missing. "Where's 7? Still –"

9's face falls. "Still unconscious," he says. "Come on. I'll take you to see her."

The creature on 9's shoulder is staring at my skeletal arm, and I feel its eyes on me all the way to the sickbay.

* * *

A/N: Transition chapter.

Let me know if there are any typos in this chapter, please. It hasn't been edited too too well.


	13. The Machine Hunts

A/N: There are a lot of things I want to say in these Notes. Lessee...

This chapter is a waymarker for many reasons, the first of which is that it was my birthday a few weeks ago. I'm a year older, and so suddenly have to get smarter to keep exceeding people's expectations of me and freaking them out...

(Okay, I _pretend_ I exceed people's expectations.)

The other important thing is that midway through this chapter, 0 hits 100 pages (in the Pages file I write this in, Optima size 12, with 1.2 spacing)! I'm torn between a) being surprised that I managed to write a hundred-page book and b) horrified at how much of the story's still left to write. There are two major story arcs to 0, folks, and we're not quite at the end of the _first_ one.

The stopped watch in the previous chapter just corresponds to a simple substitution cipher, I think, hinting at something that's explicitly stated in this chapter and that most of you have probably figured out already. Sorry. In my hurry to add lots of codes to 0, I forgot to think of interesting messages for them. :P

I think that's about it. This is my favorite chapter since Inferno, I think, so sorry for butchering it with long A/Ns. Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter Thirteen – The Machine Hunts

A storm blows in from the lifeless seas, huge black clouds roiling angrily. Buffeted by a slow, steady wind, it crawls its way over the Shards and into the Wastes, churning the desert into mud. The World's End has destroyed many things, but nothing can stop the rain.

Droplets lash down among the buildings of the Dead City and a sudden flash of lighting illuminates the tiny figure, soaked through, scrambling desperately through the rubble filling Conurbation's streets. The stitchpunk's cloth skin is sopping wet, clinging to its metal skeleton. It shivers and wraps its arms around itself, looking like a drowned rat, but never slows its pace.

6 is trying his best to ignore the storm, ignore the pelting rain and scary lighting. Normally a storm like this would have him curled up in the nearest building, safe from everything, drawing pictures of the Metal People and the Source...the Source...

But now 6 has something to run from. He clambers over the wreckage as fast as he can, trying to get away from the pictures in his mind of the Burrowing Machine, of 8 being ground into little scraps. Run as fast as he can, though, they are always just behind him. 6 is beginning to tire, and the pictures are still there. _Still there._

He is nearing the Cathedral now, Sanctuary, where he will be safe at last. Safe. He turns the word over on his tongue, even as he runs. He can no longer quite remember what it is supposed to mean. The other stitchpunks will take care of him when he gets to Sanctuary, and he'll feel safe for a while, and then one day when they least expect it the Burrowing Machine will burst through the church floor and tear them all to shreds, coming for 6 last with hunger burning in its eyes...

6 sobs and stumbles forwards as thunder booms somewhere behind him. Thunder, or the Burrowing Machine? Nowhere is safe. The Burrowing Machine will find them all, eventually. It's only a matter of time.

_Time._

6 tries to enter the murk of Time again, try to find when the Burrowing Machine will find them and how long they can run, but it's so much harder to enter the darkness without a Pattern to call him and he is so tired, so distraught (_Distraught._ What an interesting word. He shouts it out to try to scare away the pictures) that he can only find glimpses of the future. Four lights in the darkness, two red and two white. A blimp, high above the clouds.

A sodden poster is peeling off the city wall next to him – _Victory Demands Sacrifice_ – and he has to stop and scrawl the lights and the blimp on it with his pen-nib fingers. If the Burrowing Machine chews him up and spits him out in hundreds of little bits, like it did to 8, someone has to know what will happen. Someone has to see the pictures.

(He shuts out the voices in his head that mockingly wonder if there _will_ be anyone left to see them.)

Sanctuary can't be far now. He must be almost there. He must be.

• • • •

Somewhere on the outskirts of the Dead City, much too close to 6 for comfort had he known it was there, the Burrowing Machine churns its way through the soil. It feels the stitchpunks in the earth. It smells them in the air. It is so close now, so close to its prey.

Then one of its armor-plated eyes twitches. Master is calling to it. Mouth-blades spinning in frustration, the behemoth slithers into a shack on the outskirts of town.

Somewhere deep in the monster's skull, a paper disk begins to glow with a red light.

"_There has been a change of plans,_" says the voice of Master in the Burrowing Machine's head. "_Another of my children will track down the rest of the demons, after all._"

The Burrowing Machine growls to itself, its huge riveted tail whipping around and smashing bits of crumbling furniture. It had been so close.

"_Instead,_" continues Master, "_you will find the demon that had been accompanying the one you killed. You will kill it, too. And by that time, I will have more hunting for you._"

The Burrowing Machine barks in satisfaction and shuts off the link with Master. With a flick of its tail, it destroys a wall of the shack. The entire structure topples like wet cardboard, splintering over the monster's iron back.

The machine slithers out of the wreckage and away from Rossum's Forest and the Library, churning through the dead ground towards the heart of the city.

• • • •

The rain pounds down on 6 as he slows to a crawl, shivering and hugging himself for warmth. The pictures don't chase him anymore, not for the time being. _Strange,_ he thinks, _how being miserable makes you forget other miserable things._ The downpour shows no sign of abating, and the little stitchpunk begins to eye some of the passing buildings with interest. It has been a long time since he saw or heard any sign of the Burrowing Machine. For better or worse, it is hunting elsewhere now. That means that for the time being, 6 is safe.

(He shouts out the word a few times again. It used to mean something else to him, something permanent, but he can't think what.)

Lightning spirals down from the sky and hits a decrepit old building, only a few blocks away from him. 6 tries not to think about what would happen if a building collapsed. The rain lashes down, harder than before, and – in front of him stands shelter. An abandoned subway station, doors full of broken windows that he could easily slip through.

It does not take long for 6 to make up his mind. A very real danger and discomfort here, versus a danger already partly lost in the fading past. Running across the rubble-strewn street, 6 ducks through a broken door and into the dark and quiet of the station.

It is nearly pitch-black inside the old subway station, the only light coming from the broken windows in the doors. 6 wishes he had a lightbulb staff like 9's – in the darkness, and with one blind eye, he can see almost nothing at all.

A few bodies litter the floor, 6 finally makes out, probably trampled in the rush to get out of the place once the gas bombs started falling. The place looks like it has been virtually untouched by the War of the Machines.

6 feels exhausted and drenched, hours of running finally catching up to him. Cautiously, he approaches one of the bodies; a young Paxian soldier, by the looks of it, wrapped in a thick red cloak. The bodies hadn't rotted – they never would, all the bacteria had been killed by the gas bombs too, they would always look as if they had just fallen asleep – but they don't breathe, and no warmth comes from them, and so it takes 6 a while to sidle up to the dead soldier.

The little stitchpunk eases a fold of the red cloak from under the cadaver's arm and wraps it around his soaking form, wood-and-metal teeth chattering. _Just a few minutes,_ he tells himself sternly. _Not long. Not long at all. Just until I'm dry, then back to the streets for me. Back to Sanctuary. Safe._

He is still telling himself that as his vision begins to dim, and the subway station slowly slips away, and he falls into a deep and dreamless sleep.

• • •

It takes a long time for 6 to wake, wrapped in the thick red cloak. Outside, the rain has abated to a slight drizzle – he can't see it, but he can hear it. He breathes a silent sigh of relief. No more lightning.

He is dry, more or less (correction: slightly damp); the cloak has fared worse than him. 6 can tell as much by feeling the soggy cloth, at least. The room is utterly black. He can barely make out the face of the corpse he's sheltering under.

Was it lighter before? 6 can barely remember, still groggy from sleep and –

Yes. Yes, it definitely was.

Something squeals outside, metal scraping upon metal. Light suddenly returns to the abandoned subway station as something blocking the doorway outside shifts.

That must be what had woken him up, thinks 6. It was light before, and then it was dark because something _moved_ in front of it –

The scraping noise echoes through the station again, louder than before, and now 6 can see what was blocking the door. Segmented metal rings, each the height of a human, studded with rivets. Tubes slither beneath them, pumping oil through the creature.

Mechanical heart faltering, 6 backs away from the door as quietly as he can.

The scraping sound returns. The metal segments slither away.

6 stays where he is, scarcely daring to breathe.

Then a single red eye in an armored shell slides in front of the doors, reflected in the broken glass.

6 screams and runs for the back of the subway station as the Burrowing Machine roars in victory and its armored head plows into the doors, broken glass flying everywhere as chainsaws and meat grinders in the monster's mouth roar to life hungrily.

The creature draws back. The doors are a splintered wreck, but the subway entrance still stands.

6 thanks every god he can think of. The station was well-designed. The Burrowing Machine can't get to him until it breaks through the outside wall, and that will take it some time.

He runs to the back of the station, searching for alternate exits. Nothing's promising. Lit up once again by the feeble sun behind the clouds, the floor of the station runs straight, completely unobstructed, until it drops into the channel the underground trains ran along. Washrooms and ticket booths are the only things built into the walls, and those won't lead anywhere.

Outside, the Burrowing Machine howls and rams its skull into the front of the station again. The wall shakes, and plaster drifts gently down from the ceiling.

6 runs back to the dead Paxian soldier, lying very near the edge of the platform. He has no idea if this will work, or if he'll ever be able to get back to the surface again, but it's the only way out of the subway station that he sees.

The Burrowing Machine crashes into the station's facade a third time, and bricks begin to shift. Parts of the ceiling are starting to crumble.

6 grabs a length of the soldier's cloak and begins dragging it out from under the corpse's arm. The Burrowing Machine howls at him from outside, staring in hungrily through the pulverized doors.

The little stitchpunk grabs an end of the cloak and lowers himself off the edge of the subway platform. The light from the street cannot quite reach here. It is very dark, down here with the rails.

The cloak isn't quite long enough. 6 drops the last few inches, landing heavily on the gravel sprinkled along either side of the subway tracks. Somewhere behind him, he can hear a crunch and a soft _thud_ as the station wall collapses. The Burrowing Machine roars.

6 backs away from the platform above him, or at least where he thinks it is. The station is cast into total darkness again, the doors crushed under the facade's pulverized bulk. The Burrowing Machine can't sense him, there's _no possible way_ it could know he's hiding down here, 6 will just sneak away, carefully, carefully, carefully, and –

Dozens of red lights glimmer to life above him as the Burrowing Machine rears its ugly head above the subway rails. 6's heart stops momentarily as he presses himself against the graffitied wall.

The monstrous creature casts about, snuffling. 6 backs away, down the rails. It doesn't know he's here, it's trying to find him but it can't, he's outsmarted it. Take a step backwards. Take another step. Back away slowly. No eye contact. Get away, carefully, carefully –

A sliver of a broken bottle, abandoned long ago on the subway tracks, slices into 6's foot. The little stitchpunk yelps in pain, and the Burrowing Machine roars and looks down at him.

6 backs away, limping, grimacing at the pain. The Burrowing Machine growls and slithers down towards him. The eyes are all fixed on him now, every last one, and the enormous mouth begins to whir to life...

The Burrowing Machine tries to lunge forward, and some obstinate bit of studs and cracked drywall, splintered but still solid, catches against the rivets on its back and holds it fast. The monster screams, thrashing and snapping at its prey, but 6 is just out of reach.

The little stitchpunk turns and runs as fast as he can down the subway line, lit by the red glow of the Burrowing Machine's eyes as it howls behind him. He has half a minute advantage, at most. If he doesn't use it to the best of his abilities, he'll die.

_Think! _he screams at himself, _think think think!_, but it doesn't help.

The subway line branches ahead of him, and 6 dives into the left passage in near-blackness again. Behind him, sounds of screeching metal and tearing wood echo through the subway tunnels as the Burrowing Machine thrashes around. It grows pitch-black again, then incrementally lightens. The tunnel opens somewhere ahead.

And the Burrowing Machine roars behind him, a noise like clockwork thunder, as it breaks free of the remnants of the station and dives after the stitchpunk.

6 is flagging, and he knows it. Every step he takes with his wounded foot drives the glass in deeper. The best he can manage is a frantic limp. The Burrowing Machine churns through the tunnels behind him, impossibly fast, smashing through tunnels it can't fit through. It's a matter of minutes, maybe seconds, before the machine overtakes him, and – –

The subway tunnel opens out into drizzly grey daylight, cobbled stone bridges and gravel underfoot leading to a rusting train yard in the distance. 6 dives to the side of the tunnel, presses himself up against cobbled stone wall, and waits.

Not for long. The Burrowing Machine shoves its bullet-shaped head out of the subway tunnel, armored eyes casting every which way except for right behind it. The creature sniffs at the air, but the rain is washing away any scent of its prey. It growls in fury. Master will not be pleased. It had better find its prey, and fast.

The behemoth loops away through the ground towards the train yard, demolishing buildings and stray subway cars in anger as it burrows off into the rain.

6 waits for five more minutes, counting off the seconds in his head, then cautiously peels himself from the wall and drags himself to the centre of the yard. Sitting down in the gravel and the rain, he tries to tug the sliver of glass out of his foot.

It hurts like nothing he's experienced before, and 6 has to stop for several minutes, dizzy, as pain washes over him. The shard stays exactly where it is – lodged in his sole.

6 limps over to a decaying wooden subway car and peels off a splinter of wood about his height. The stitchpunk flips it over and leans heavily on it, keeping the sharp side up. If the Burrowing Machine comes back, maybe he can stab it in an eye.

Thumping along on his new staff, 6 limps towards a stone stairway leading up out of the yard, and beside it – thank the Scientist – a ramp for heavy materials. Hobbling up the slope, it's all 6 can do to prevent himself from crying out and running forward. The Burrowing Machine might still be nearby.

In front of him stretches a narrow street, winding crazily, lined with ornate iron-caged lampposts. He limps down the street as fast as he can, the pain the last thing on his mind now. At the end of the street is Sanctuary. Safety. Safe.

Something seems wrong with the skyline, but it hardly seems important now. 6 runs out into the cobbled square surrounding Sanctuary, and –

The stitchpunk's mismatched eyes widen, and he slumps forward in grief. The burned-out hulk of his home lies in front of him, a dead behemoth. Smoke still rises from the crushed windows, embers smoldering somewhere in the church's depths.

Sanctuary's high tower, the one 6 had crouched on the top of so many times and scribbled out his pictures of the Beast and the Source and the Spider Lady (though everyone had thought it was the Great Machine) lies in a deep valley in the melted shingles. The entire building is blackened. 6 stares for long minutes, disbelieving.

He finally forces himself to turn away. The other stitchpunks have to be alive. They must be. They wouldn't have stayed and be burned up, they must have moved on.

6 has a sinking feeling that this is the Burrowing Machine's work, but he forces himself to push the thought aside. The other stitchpunks are alive. Where would they go? The Wastes, or the Library, or the Source?

The Source is only a few blocks away. 6 will look there first. It pleases him that the place might still have a purpose, after all.

Something flutters out of the wreckage of Sanctuary, drifting just over 6's head. It is one of his pictures, the paper torn and blackened so badly that the stitchpunk can just make out the drawing of the Talisman. 6 reaches out to grab it, and the drawing collapses into thousands of fragments of ash.

His drawings are pouring out of the windows of Sanctuary by the hundreds, some upwelling of heat underneath them pushing the ashes of his pictures into the sky. 6 knows he should feel sad, but instead he feels a strange sense of relief as he waves them goodbye. Maybe beings somewhere up in the clouds will find them, and treasure them all, and celebrate the one who drew them, though they would never know him, and maybe even come down and squash the Burrowing Machine.

The striped stitchpunk turns away from his burning home and limps off in the direction of the Source. Whatever the case, he has to find the other stitchpunks before they find the Metal People. If he is not there, things will turn out badly. Very, very badly. He tries not to dwell on that possibility too much.

He will find them. That's all there is to it. He will find them, and then he will be safe, and they can go on with their lives.

6 never notices the Seeker, lifting out of the smoking Sanctuary into the drizzling sky behind him in a cloud of scribbled pictures. On its own part, it barely acknowledges the stitchpunk either. The machine is not designed to hunt and kill – it is none too smart, but it has a job to do, and that it will fulfill.

Grasping a lump of blackened metal in its long claw, the creature ascends into the thin clouds. They pose no threat to its navigation. The Seeker's snail-like eyes swivel on their stalks, piercing through the fog. The master has instructed them all to fly this way to stay hidden from the demons. It understands none of this, but it can follow the order well enough.

The Factory sprawls in front of it, belching smokestacks and tangled barbed wire and machines patrolling everywhere. Dropping out of the clouds, the Seeker spirals around the three tall towers and drops in a hatch set in the roof above the single red window.

It swerves past rafters and a dangling sac of machinery, held up by enormous pneumatic clamps. The enormous creature on the other side of the room is facing away from it, delicately stitching, and the Seeker waits patiently until it looks up.

"_What have you found?_" asks the master, red eye flaring. The Seeker drifts forward and dumps the lump of metal from Sanctuary into the Machine's outstretched claw, then spirals up towards the hatch in the roof. It has other duties, and it does not need much intelligence to know not to stay around the master for too much longer.

The Great Machine growls, inspecting the mangled, blackened head of the Winged Beast in its claw. For a brief moment it almost crushes it, but stops itself. Resources can be used over, to better advantage. The Winged Beast was only a scout. The Machine had always suspected the stitchpunks might kill it. It will put its machinery to a better use.

Still seething, the Great Machine grabs the partly-dismantled body of 2 and pulls it towards itself. You send a machine the first time and it is slain. The enemy is wary of it. But when it comes back, resurrected, the enemy is terrified.

Flicking out a knife, the Great Machine begins cutting blades off the Winged Beast's head with furious energy. Even more so when the resurrected thing is one of their own.

The Winged Beast's two remaining eyes are carefully removed and placed gently beside the blades and the body of 2. Perhaps _resurrected _is the wrong word.

A miniature cloak. A broken doll.

More like _improved._

* * *

A/N: RUN, 6, RUN


	14. Pax, Our Glorious Nation

A/N: Urgh. This chapter took far too long to write. I was about half-done it at the beginning of this week, and completely confident I'd finish it long before it needed to be posted, but –

Basically, the webcomic Nimona updates every day I'm not posting a chapter here (and therefore, should be writing.) Turns out I _can_ procrastinate over summer, and I can do it very well. I finished this chapter a minute ago.

Enjoy.

* * *

Chapter Fourteen – Pax, Our Glorious Nation

**June 21, 1851 V.E.**

Victor Rossum was sitting down to breakfast when he found the letter.

Elaine and Alexandria were there, for once, the latter about to head off for school and the former leaving for some kind of meeting. Pinocchio perched on the dresser behind him, whirring to itself.

The day's mail sifted through his pthistic old hands as he pulled out a chair at the family table, setting down a bowl of cereal and a newspaper. Flyers, straight to the garbage bin for those; terse letters from old acquaintances, he'd get around to answering them eventually; and –

The creamy-white envelope, stamped with the triangular Pax crest, fell out of the plebeian pile and landed on the table.

The others hadn't noticed. Elaine was saying something encouraging to Alexandria, ruffling the little girl's hair – Victor dropped the other mail on the dresser behind the table and eased open the wax.

Two letters fell out, printed on thick, expensive paper. Victor scanned the signatures, brow furrowing.

His mouth fell open in shock.

_Dear Comrade, _the first letter began.

_Throughout the Great World War, our glorious nation has towered over the globe as the defining symbol of power and progress. Thanks to the focused and organized efforts of our military forces, the War ended, and the world sees itself in a state of rebirth._

_Ten years after the War, we must employ new methods to cleanse our planets of its scars. And on this day, it is clear to me that the path to peace, prosperity, and a leisurely life for the citizens of our nation is through technology._

_Technology that will build. Technology that will create. Technology that will learn, improve, and grow._

_I am pleased to extend State funding to your Automaton research, Mr. Rossum. Make us proud._

_Daniel Clemence_

_63rd Chancellor of Pax_

...

...

...

The _Chancellor._ The Chancellor himself had written him a letter.

"What is it, dear?" murmured Elaine distractedly, finally noticing the paper in his hand.

"Ah..." Victor removed his heavyset glasses and distractedly polished them on his sleeve. "The, ah, the Chancellery is giving me funding for Pino – my robot."

A whirring sound from behind him interrupted any comment Elaine might have been about to make. FROM NEWSPAPER ARTICLE? it displayed. That reminded Victor – he needed to get around to finish expanding its vocabulary. It was a subject he was not particularly proud of.

His wife's eyes narrowed. "Do you _have_ to bring that thing with you?" she inquired, less _It annoys me when you bring your automaton to breakfast_ than _I do not want that anywhere _near_ my dining room._

"I'm trying to talk to it, Elaine," Victor began, then gave up and tried again. "I mean, I talk to it every chance I get to expand its vocabulary, I hope, and this..." He drew himself up under his wife's withering glare. "Yes. Yes, I do."

Elaine opened her mouth – and Victor was saved by the entrance of the family cat.

"Susci!" Alexandria cried, diving from her perch and hugging the thing. Elaine's face grew even more stormy. Unbeknownst to his daughter, the cat had died last year, mostly of old age. It was a time when Victor was making huge breakthroughs in Machine Intelligence for the project that would eventually turn into Pinocchio, a time when he thought nothing was beyond him. In secret, and with only Elaine as a witness, he had run a network of cables through the dead cat's body and replaced its brain with a crude AI. The pet would never die now – Victor had preserved the organic components carefully – but it served as only a source of horror to Elaine. In retrospect, maybe it hadn't been one of his wiser accomplishments.

_Maybe?!_ sneered a voice in his head, the one that objected to everything he had to say for no reason other than he was the one who said it. He should give them all names eventually – no, that would only encourage them – but they weren't voices in his head, per se, they were a _part of him_ –

_You resurrected a cat,_ continued the voice, ignoring his thoughts, _and you thought it was a good idea. Who do you think you are? Frankenstein himself?_

_Why not? _yet another voice piped up, stunning the first one into silence. Victor shook his head. The things were more trouble than they were worth.

"We should be on our way," Elaine muttered, grabbing Alexandria and dragging her towards the door. Victor looked up absentmindedly.

"Oh! I wanted to mention it before, but, ah...this weekend, when everyone's done with their work, I thought maybe we could have a picnic in Clemence Park? We haven't seen each other, really," he stammered, "for a while, but I thought..."

Alexandria grinned at him, but Elaine's face was a mask. "We'll see," she said. Then they were both out the door.

"I'm sorry, Pinocchio," he said. "What was it?"

FUNDING, it flashed. BECAUSE OF NEWSPAPER?

"Um..." Victor scratched his head. With the letter from the Chancellor and Elaine and everything else that had been going on, he was finding it difficult to think logically. "Yes, Pinocchio, you're probably right." There was a good chance he was, too. "I just need to read this first."

The second letter was typed on slightly cheaper paper, with one or two ink stains at the margins, though it was still far higher quality than anything Victor could afford.

_Dear Mr. Rossum,_ it read.

_Our Chancellor is a very busy man and has a great many deal of things to oversee, so it has been left to me to explain the details of your State funding. I hope the Glorious Chancellor's letter has outlined the basics._

_We were very intrigued in your Automaton research featured in yesterday's edition of the _Pax Heralder_. On condition of such research being currently in operation, and you being in ownership of it, we find it in the country's best interests to fully support such an ambitious and applicable show of Progress._

_Both the Chancellor and I would like to see your research first-hand, to gain a better appreciation for how you have solved a puzzle that eluded so many great minds of our nation. I would ask you to reply to this letter, using the address provided below, to give us a time and place where we could meet with you._

_Best regards, Mr. Rossum. All hail Pax._

_Philip Valka_

_Viceroy of Pax_

_The Chancellory, Imperium, Pax_

_P.S. I would advise you, if you are not doing so already, to keep an ear on Pax's National Radio today. Our country is entering a glorious new age, and I can assure you that you will be a historical hero at the heart of all of it._

What did any of _that_ mean?

_Evidently, _his voices helpfully tried to explain, _the Chancellor was impressed by the article and –_

_Shut up,_ he offered helpfully, and they were quiet.

The Chancellor and the Viceroy, the two most powerful men in the country – probably the world – had each just written him a letter, and asked if they could maybe drop by sometime.

It was a good thing Victor was sitting down. As it was, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to get out of his chair.

"P-Pinocchio?" he asked. "Could you turn on the radio, please?"

With a slight creak, his robot reached out with its new self-built arm – Victor still wasn't sure how it'd been able to do that – and turned the knob on the radio's lid.

There was a burst of static.

Then "...the exact number of people in the convoy has still not been identified," a voice was saying, "but it is believed to be the first wave of a full-on Bellum invasion."

"What?" whispered Victor.

"This was a statement from the Chancellor earlier today," continued the voice, oblivious, "speaking to crowds outside the newly-finished Chancellory in Imperium."

Another burst of static, then background noises and garbled shouting drowned out anything reporters were saying.

"My friends," said a new voice, deeper and richer than the last, and all background noises died out. "Today is a day of mourning for the nation of Pax."

Mourning? What in the Divine Emperor's name was going on?

"As you no doubt have heard," said the Chancellor, "last night a convoy of Bellum soldiers crossed the no-man's-land between our nations and into our territory, breaking every agreement we have put in place with them."

Angry murmurings.

"The convoy then proceeded to attack and destroy a band of civilians, citizens moving to Imperium from across the country. They attempted to fight back, but Bellum's troops outnumbered them." A brief pause. "Many of the civilians were women and children. I am afraid the Bellumese soldiers left no survivors."

The square began to break out into louder mutters of fury. A few people started yelling.

"As you know," sighed the Chancellor, "I had been trying to negotiate peace between the lands of Pax and Bellum, despite their earlier instigations."

A few shouts of protest, then a rattle of steel as guards shouldered their way through the crowd and dragged off those responsible.

"But in this massacre," boomed the Chancellor, "Bellum has gone too far. Today is a day of mourning for Pax, but it is also a day of _fury._ We will show Bellum, once and for all, that it cannot slaughter our citizens while we sit idly by. We are the most powerful nation on Earth, the chosen of the Emperor on High, and we will show the world that Pax has lost none of its glory and strength!"

The crowd began to cheer.

"We will send a message from the far reaches of the Axis Mountains to the far continents of Armorica that _nobody_ crosses our borders, _nobody _kills our citizens, and that Pax will avenge itself on anyone who wrongs it! The world believes we have grown old and weak, my friends. Today we will prove them all wrong. We will take back the lives of all those Bellum has killed as this day Pax _declares – war – on Bellum!_"

The crowd exploded into cheering and clapping. Trumpets began to blare.

_Pax, our glorious nation,_

_Pax, the keystone of Creation_

_Chosen of the Emperor on High,_

_Whom we praise for our salvation._

"War," stammered Victor, rubbing his glasses frantically. "War. With Bellum."

FATHER? shone Pinocchio. DOES THIS MEAN BELLUM IS EVIL?

"_I don't know!_" snapped Victor, then rubbed his balding head. "I'm sorry, Pinocchio. I don't."

_Glory to the Chancellor on high,_

_Glory to his Love and Watchful Eye_

_With a shining sword he'll set us free_

_From our greed and enmity._

STATE FUNDING,mused Pinocchio. BELLUM?

"Pinocchio, I really don't – this is just – I don't know what any of this is about! I _haven't a goddamn clue!_"

_Death to all misers of mis'ry and woe,_

_Peace to all nations, the high and the low_

_Pax, our glorious nation,_

_All praise to thee._

"War with Bellum," Victor muttered. "Shit shit _shit._"

FATHER, WHY –

"_Not now, Pinocchio!_" Victor made a visible effort to compose himself. "This is – I just – there's too much going on – I'm going for a walk, Pinocchio. I'll be back in a few hours."

Victor disappeared into the hall, and the lights went out. There came the sound of the door being shut, then locked.

Pinocchio sat in the dark house, red eye glowing, inner machinery whirring away.

• • • •

Pink clouds swept over the late-morning sky of Imperium, arches and bridges and soaring buttresses glowing as if they had leaped out of a dream. The city was already churning, people hurrying through the streets and to recruitment offices to sign up for the war against Bellum. It was another glorious day in the nation's capitol.

The newly-built Chancellory loomed over the city in pale splendor, a sleeping leviathan in the morning sun. It was an awe-inspiring sight, the best the formidable resources of Pax could create.

The two men, walking through the gardens surrounding the palace, had seen it all many times before.

"It seemed almost too easy," mused one, tall and thin, walking stiffly like a scavenging bird. Thin lips stretched into a smile. "I suppose I gave them ample reason. It's no _fun_ anymore."

The other man, shorter and swarthier than the first, chuckled nervously. "Yes. I agree. What's Bellum saying about all this?"

A light laugh. "Oh, they're all in an uproar of course. Don't worry. Nobody listens to them."

"Of course."

"Don't be so _uptight,_ Philip. We did it! We saved the country. Oh! That reminds me. Did you send that scientist the letter?"

"Yes, sir. Of course. He should be receiving it soon."

"Hmm. It's probably a fake."

"A what, sir?"

"Fake, Philip. His automaton's probably a scam. I have to admit I'm still intrigued, though. Did you talk to anyone in Conurbation?"

A bark, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "Sir! With all due respect, I've had a day to do this all in. Not to mention..." a hand was waved in the general direction of the gleaming city, "..._that._"

A sigh echoed through the blossoming trees. "True. Fair enough, Philip. I think this might be important, though, concerning all of," another hand pointed towards the city, somehow with far more authority and poise, though the posture was the same, "_that._"

"I –"

"Doesn't matter, Philip. Just a thought." Cloth rustled as a watch was lifted from a fob pocket, briefly consulted, and stuffed back in. "I have a meeting to get to. Council of war. Keep in touch, Philip. Burn the convoy, and tell me if the scientist replies."

"Of course, sir."

The tall man ambled away through the dream-like garden, heading for the doors of the shining Chancellory.

* * *

A/N: It's so much fun writing national anthems for fake countries, especially countries as narcissistic and corrupt as Pax. Count the number of blatant lies in the anthem? How many can _you_ find?

The Chancellor's letter is actually proper 9 canon, with one or two words changed to give the characters my names. It can be found, along with the Scientist's journal and a bunch of other interesting backstory things, on the website _The 9 Experiment: Peace through Science._

(And I feel like such a munchkin for copying it directly to boost my wordcount.)


	15. The Man with Two Heads

A/N: I'm really sorry about how long this chapter's taken to complete. I hope it's worth it. It certainly spices up the plot.

The song 3 (or 4, I really don't know) sings is Mercede's lullaby from Pan's Labyrinth, 'cause I just watched that and Fanfiction's all about using stuff that doesn't belong to you.

* * *

Chapter Fifteen – The Man with Two Heads

7 is curled into a ball at the very back of the ramshackle sickbay, pale and frail, wrapped in layers of blankets like a chrysalis. Items from 5's small healer's kit litter the room around her – a pair of toothpick ends tied together to use as tweezers, a needle, a spool of red thread.

"What do you think, 0?" 9's nervous voice breaks the silence, looking for reassurance. "She'll be alright...right?"

The hooded creature on 9's shoulder clambers down and strokes 7's face, beckoning its conveyor to come closer. After a brief pause, 9 obliges and perches awkwardly on the side of the bed.

The cloaked creature begins to hum, a haunting melody I do not recognize. 9 tries to follow along. "Do you know the words?" he asks, voiced hushed. The cloaked creature shakes its head.

"Forgive me, 9," I say. "I have some things that –"

The stitchpunk nods absentmindedly, and I hurry back down the corridors to the main room of the Library. There is nothing I can do for 7 at the moment, but I can help myself. There are too many questions that need answering. And I am in a building that holds all the answers.

The gargantuan shelves open up before me, row upon row upon _row_ of moldering books. It strikes me that I have no idea where to start. The green light? The Great Machine?

A swish of red surprises me. 1 is perched three shelves above me, poring over an enormous leather book inset with gold. "What is it?" I ask, and the leader of the Coven jumps.

"0," he rasps. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for books," I say. "What is that one?"

1 pauses before answering. "A very old book," he says, "that the old owners of Sanctuary took great pains to safeguard before they died. I had it moved to the Library as soon as I could."

"What's it about?" Perhaps my search ends here, and this book already holds all the answers I am looking for.

1 chooses his words carefully. "The story of a man," he says, "who taught people that they should live in peace."

"And what did the people do?"

1 laughs. "They killed him."

"...Oh."

The old stitchpunk smiles wearily. "Indeed. The story goes on from there, so perhaps the people redeem themselves. But it seems they've just killed their one chance of salvation."

The merits of the story will have to wait for now. "1, I'm trying to find certain information. Do you know where I would need to look?"

The stitchpunk closes his book with a leathery _thud. _"Scientist-knows-how this library is organized. The twins know, but nobody else. Do you have an author in mind?"

"Ah, no. I was trying to look up the meanings of some things..."

1 nods his head in apparent understanding. "We've carried down a dictionary set and put it in the far left corner. It should have everything you need."

I want to ask for clarification, but 1 is lost in his book. Walking down the rows of bookshelves, I head for the back left corner of the room.

There was once a chair and table nestled there, under the light of a pair of windows, but sometime over the course of Ragnarok a stray bomb detonated against the library wall and knocked the assemblage over. There is a hole in the corner of the wall, letting in pale gray light. Water puddles beneath it, left over from the recent rain.

The chair is still intact, but rests on its side now. A pile of volumes lie stacked in an uneven heap, or propped against the chair, or splayed open on its side.

I climb up onto what was formerly the chair's armrest and peer at the book in front of me. _M,_ its spine reads.

I flip enormous pages. _Machine._

_An apparatus using or applying mechanical power..._ no good. I try _master_ next.

_A man who has people working for him – A machine or device directly controlling another – Gain control of; overcome._ All things I already know. I pull the next volume towards myself. _G._

I search up _Green light, _but it has nothing to do with the tendrils I dream about. Next volume. _R._

No entries for _Rossum. _I search for _Ragnarok._

_The final battle between the gods and the powers of evil. From Old Norse, literally "twilight of the gods."_

The volumes have been surprisingly unhelpful. I slip down from the edge of the chair. Perhaps I should check in on 9 and 7 and the cloaked creature again.

Volumes slip past, all shapes and sizes, and...

A slim brown book, nearly lost in the shadow of its larger companions, with an image of a trisected circle on its spine.

My mind flashes back to a far-off day in the shadows of the Factory. "_I will not force you to do this for me, my son._" On its neck – just below the eye – my master had a strange ornament that _looked exactly like this one._

The book is a shelf up. I climb towards it tediously, wondering darkly for a moment if I should unsheath my remaining sword-arm and stab my way up the bookcase. In the end, I decide against it.

The copper circle gleams in the light from the remaining windows, entrancing. The book is small enough that I can carry it. I pull it from the shelf.

Another trisected circle on the cover, large enough that I can be certain it is the same as the ornament my master had. Three symbols on the circle, one in each section, and each like nothing I have seen before. One that looks something like a fish, one something like a horseshoe, and the last bears no resemblance to anything.

_The Annals of Paracelsus,_ reads the title below, _1500-1505. _I move to flip the first page open.

Something clatters a few shelves over. I freeze. 1 is probably moving around again (searching for me?) and if this...this..._thing_ is something of my masters', chances are I do not want the stitchpunks to know I know about it.

I grab the book (my now-skeletal arm seems just as strong as it was before, which surprises me) and jump awkwardly down from the shelf, landing heavily and scurrying behind the row of books. A shadow is creeping along the rows, made misshapen by the curved spines of the books. Something swishes along the ground. 1's cape. Clutching the _Annals_ to my chest, I creep away as quietly as I can.

The back wall of the library room leads into a sweeping set of marble stairs, leading out into a sunlit balcony. Heavy wooden doors guarded the exit once, but they stand sagging open now. One is a splintered pulp.

I creep up the stairs as quietly as I can, shielding my red eye from the glare of the sun. The perpetual clouds are thin today, and the skyline of the Dead City is thrown into stark relief around me. Below me is the Library's courtyard, where a few dead trees still stand and broken stone angels guard the entrances.

The Library is a huge ring of a building, I realize, balconies on all sides looking into the central courtyard. The enormous room I was in must be only a fraction of the entire building. So many humans must have labored over the books here, hundreds and hundreds of lifetimes dedicated to preserving their thoughts. And, of course, now they are all dead.

Around the library are blackened trees, stretching off into paths and gateways and eventually the buildings of the Dead City. The Library is in a park, I realize. Rossum's Forest. That was what the stitchpunks called it.

The cloaked creature in the Library, then...it must be one of the Twins. 3 or 4. I almost laugh out loud. Though the glowing white eyes still unnerve me, and the telepathy. _That_ does not seem right.

I flip the mysterious volume's cover open. Again, the circle, in more detail now. Metal claws reach down from the sides, nearly touching the symbols, and further circles and arches are inscribed in the edges. _Reproduction of the annals of Theophrastus Phillipus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim, _(...?) _aka Paracelsus._

That...

...is the most ridiculous name I have ever seen. I flip to the centre of the book.

_The Soule, _I read,_ is less an intrinsic Parte of ourselves than simply the giver of Life. Our Person and Being are not a result of the Soule, but rather who we think ourselves to Be._

_As a Resulte, with proper Procedure, the Soule can be Exchanged or Given, even to inanimate Objects, if one is willing to make the ultimate Sacrifice._

Souls...can be _exchanged?_

_This practice has been Discovered & Practiced for many Decades,_ I read on, _by the Shamans & Wizards of Olde, but through Trial and modern Science I have Refined & Perfected this Conduit. Already my Assistants begin to call it my Talisman, but such a name is Superstitious & Misleading. Through the powers of Progress & God's own will, we have taken that which the Ancients feared & seized, yea, Improved it, for the Betterment of all Life. I know not whose Soules must be Sacrificed for this end – I fear our King may order it the fate of some of our miserable Prisoners – but it is all for the Glory of our Nation & of the World. Imagine armies of iron Soldiers, who feel no Pain and will expand our Kingdom's borders, or wooden Workers & Scholars who need never Sleep. & when our glorious King grows old, yea, even when he lies on Death's Door, we will save his Soule and place it in an immortal Body of Gold & Silk & Precious Jewels, & he will reign over his Kingdom until the End of Time._

Images show beams of light streaming from men into small hominid creatures, who, I confess...look suspiciously like stitchpunks. Paracelsus talks of experiments and the refining of his Conduit, and lists of brave servants who _Sacrificed their Soules for the Furtherment of this Project._ It makes no mention of whether they went willingly or not. I flip to the last entry in the book.

_The King & all his illustrious Courtiers still cannot see the fruits of my great Experiment. They laugh at all I have Done, even as my Homunculi walk before Them. It is all Witchcraft & Sorcery, they Say, & has no place in this World._

_How do I open the Eyes of someone who does not wish to See? I pray to the Emperor on High that they will see the Folly of their Ways before the end. My Discovery will guide the Future, someday. By all that is Divine, I am sure of it._

I close the book, but my head is spinning. Paracelsus – whoever he was – discovered a way to _transfer souls._ Could the ornament my master has – could it be the Conduit which he spoke of? That makes no sense – _less _than no sense, but why would both objects look the same? And if it is, what on _Earth_ is my master doing with it?

"Ah," calls a voice behind me, gravelly and hoarse. "I have been looking for you."

I slam the book shut and hide it behind me. "Hello, 1," I call. "I just came up here, to, ah –"

"My brother. Our father sends his greetings."

That is not 1's voice. I peer into the darkness of the doorway into the library.

Two red lights bob into view, one over the other. Between them, a little dimmer, two white orbs shine. They look almost like...

_eyes._

"What are you doing out here, brother?" The voice is far more rusty than 1's, now that I listen, harsh and jagged. "Mapping out the demon's location?" It is mocking. "Preparing to finally purge the world of them?"

"Who are you?" I call, backing towards the railing. Nowhere to go, except the courtyard far below. "Come out into the light!"

A wheezing chuckle answers. "Of course. Greetings, my brother!"

The four lights lurch forwards, and a dim outline begins to form around them. Then the entire creature shuffles out onto the balcony.

A tattered old cloak hides most of it, but I can see it is vaguely humanoid. Burlap and metal plates overlap to form a patchy skin. From its long arms, hidden under the cloak, blades drag behind it on the ground. A red light hums in its chest, wires trailing from it and plunging into its skin. A doll's head turns towards me, both eyes smashed out and replaced by brilliant white lights. "How have you fared?"

"You...you..." I stammer. The doll's head is disturbing, but it is the thing above it that is the most frightening aspect of the creature. Halfway up its back, the cloak is buckled and parts, and its back bulges out, and...

The upper half of a stitchpunk rears out of the creature's back, arms dangling lifelessly and another red light pulsing in its chest. Its head lolls around, and it looks at me with dead eyes.

The creature laughs. "Our father is never one to put things to waste, my brother. I don't believe you've met 2 yet. 2, say hello."

The dead stitchpunk's head swings up. Its mouth opens. =Welcome,= it says in a horrible musty voice. =The Wanderer and the Prodigal Son. Welcome welcome welcome.=

"Please forgive 2," says the creature, and the dead stitchpunk twists its face into a rictus of agony. "We share one mind now, he and I, and all the tact seems to be mine." It bows suddenly, 2's dead body flopping over. "Do forgive me. We haven't introduced ourselves properly yet. I am the Hunchback. Or the Haberdasher, or the Man with Two Heads. We'll finish deciding what to call ourselves shortly."

=Very shortly,= gasps 2's corpse.

"And have you given yourself a name yet, brother?" asks the Man with Two Heads. It sneers. "You've certainly been on your own long enough."

"I – I – 0," I answer automatically, trying to avoid looking at 2's body. "I call myself 0."

"Ah!" the Man with Two Heads exclaims. "Yes! After the demon's numbers. I should have guessed." It peers at me slyly. "And how goes your work in that field, my brother? 0? Surely you must have nearly succeeded by now. The demons are right here, after all. Just below us! You must be setting out to our father to tell him of their whereabouts!"

I try to think of something to say. When I began to not reply, of _course_ my master would have created other beings to hunt the demons – stitchpunks – down. I was a fool to not think of that.

"Hmm," the Man with Two Heads gloats, twisting its head to the side. "You seem to have been with the demons a long time, 0. Since the church, even. Such a shame about that. Why haven't you returned? What have you been up to?"

"What are you implying?" I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.

The Man with Two Heads shrugs and turns away. "Oh, nothing, nothing. I was just curious." It taps its chin with long claws. "Just little things. Like how you told our father that you didn't know where the stitchpunks were hiding, but the scout our father sent found it in less than an hour. Or how, now that the stitchpunks have moved, you said nothing about it to our father. But I was able to find it in a day." The Man with Two Heads rustles its blades. "Our father wants to know, my brother – what are you playing at? You almost seem to be..._siding_ with the demons. Sheltering them from our father's justice. But of course, that must only be a misunderstanding..." the creature's eyes glimmer slyly, "...or is it?"

I swallow. "Of course not," I say quickly. "That would be folly. I want Elysium as much as you."

The Man with Two Heads nods. "Of course, of course." It extends a long, bladed hand, doll's face staring at me unnervingly. "Then come with me, my brother. We will go back to the Great Machine, the two of us, and tell him where the demons are. He is lenient, our father. He will forgive you for delaying while the demons sought refuge. Then we will travel with our father's fleet, and slay the demons ourselves, and we will both be princes of Elysium. What do you say, brother?" The hand beckons. "Only this, and everything will be put right."

"I..." If I refuse, the Man with Two Heads will kill me. I am sure of it. I glance at the _Annals of Paracelsus _behind me, and suddenly everything snaps into place.

"Our master wants the demons brought to him if possible, of course," I say. "As you know. For their souls, so he can transfer them to him." The Man with Two Heads cocks its head to one side, caught off guard. "Yes. And?" it says. I feel a surge of elation.

"I, I..." I falter. "I do apologize for taking so long to report back to our master, but I have been working on a plan to lure the demons to our father. I have almost finished. And...and...I can ensure that all their souls will be his."

The Man with Two Heads hisses, 2's body swaying. "Does it matter so much? Kill them now. Bring us Elysium."

"Our master prefers this," I say, more confidently. "I was sent first, remember. This is our father's will."

"Very well," the Man with Two Heads grumbles. "Come with me to our father, and we will put this plan of yours into action –"

"No!" I yell. The creature looks up, startled. =Why?= breathes 2.

"It...ah..." I cast about for a reason. "It is not ready yet," I blurt. "I am almost finished. I just need a little more time."

"Fine," says the Man with Two Heads. "Then _I_ will tell our master where the demons are hiding, and you...finish your planning."

"Not yet!" I plead. "Don't tell our father yet. Just give me a week – nine days –"

The Man with Two Heads stares at me with its glaring white eyes. The doll face is unreadable, a perfect mask. "I give you two. After that, this is in our master's hands." Shuffling to the railing, it pauses. "Don't let me down, brother."

Then it leaps from the balcony. A second later, an airship rises into the air, the Man with Two Heads gripping the edge of the basket. It looks back at me and nods, then the blimp rises into the clouds and is lost.

I sag against the wall. _Two days._ I have two days to save the stitchpunks from the Great Machine. My master wants their souls. This much I know. I pick up the _Annals of Paracelsus _again and begin leafing through it.

I have a lot of work to do.

The rest of the day passes uneventfully, the remaining stitchpunks wandering about the vast building in an exhausted daze. I read the _Annals_ cover to cover, memorize diagrams and combinations as best I can. A single battery from the dwindling pile serves as supper, then we search for places to sleep.

I find a beam tucked beneath the ceiling, reachable by climbing a row of bookshelves. The _Annals of Paracelsus _is wedged behind me, out of sight of the stitchpunks, and if the Man with Two Heads returns he should not be able to reach me here.

I sorely hope.

In the darkness, I hear scuffling noises above me. Someone, up on the roof.

"2 was my friend, you know." The voice is 1's. "He was. It may not have seemed that way, but I considered him an ally. It's the same with all the other Coven." A pause. "What am I? A leader, yes, a _harsh _leader, fair enough, but – – That should be _keeping_ my people alive, not _killing them!_ 6 and 8 are gone. I can only assume they're dead. 7 is in a coma. 2, you killed. 2 was – different, you realize. I try to keep all the Coven safe, but 2 – he had maturity. Understanding. He understood what I was trying to do. And – Of all the Coven to die, why _him? _I never meant for him to die! And now stitchpunks are dropping like flies!"

I can picture 1, huddled on the Library roof, addressing the smokestacks of the Factory silhouetted by the rising moon.

"I may not be the best leader the Coven could have had. I _know_ I'm not, dammit. But – by – by – _everything I know of,_ I'll keep them safe from you." A rustle of cloth. "You killed 2, and I will never forgive you for it. We'll come face-to-face one day, I'm sure of it."

The sound of unsteady feet making their way to a door, and then silence.

I lay there in the dark, mind in turmoil. A long window beneath me shines moonlight, pale and frail, over the rows of books, and it is a long time before I fall asleep that night.

* * *

A/N: Can you tell we're nearing the end of the story arc? (The first one, there's another one to come.) Dun dun _dunnn._

Because of school and other boring things, I can't guarantee when the next chapter'll be up. I'll work on it as soon as I can, and in the Author's Notes for that I'll include a new schedule for when chapters will be posted. Probably no less than a week, and no more than two weeks.

Until then, I hope you're enjoying the rising suspense. 6's visions are beginning to show up. This is going to be _awesome. _:D


	16. Questions to Answers

A/N: So it's October, sort of...and I'm back with a chapter... :-/

So hiatus didn't entirely work out, but spending a long author's note apologizing for that's hardly original and above all else, I want to ensure this story doesn't devolve into a tropeified bad-grammar ubiquitous fanfiction. I am sorry for the wait, though. Hope it wasn't too bad.

A few notes from last chapter (I wasn't able to put them in cause formatting issues): Paracelsus was a real person, and he basically came up with the idea of the homunculus single-handedly (which the _9_ producers then took and made into stitchpunks.) His method of creating them was a little – um – bizarre, but at least in the real world he was actually recognized for inventing a lot of other stuff. _The Annals of Paracelsus _that appear in this story are entirely my own invention, casting Paralcesus in a sort of medieval Pax (as well as butchering old English.)

Hope you enjoy.

* * *

Chapter Sixteen – Questions to Answers

Motes of dust drift in the rays from the moonlit windows. The Source is silent, unchanged even as the rest of the Dead City seems to be lurching to life again under the crawling legs of the Machine's creatures. Loose papers blow in a wind from an open window, and 6 carefully closes and latches it.

First of all, the Coven isn't here. He can determine that much. But the probability is high – very high, higher than high, almost _certain_ – that there is something here that will help the stitchpunks save themselves against both Monsters and the Burrowing Machine.

Where to begin?

It isn't as easy as it seems. Visions pulse in 6's head now, dance at the edges of his vision. Time is reshaping itself again. Something world-shaking will happen very soon, 6 is sure of it – but what?

The Man with Two Heads lurches along at the corner of his vision, claws at the air, and vanishes into smoke. _It_ has appeared. The Spider Lady is next, 6 knows. The Box Spider Lady. Much nicer than the Man with Two Heads. 6 wonders what that will be like, when they finally find machines that aren't trying to hunt them down. But can the Spider Lady protect them, though? Against the two Monsters and everything else that's chasing them?

_Doesn't matter,_ he tells himself. _Doesn't matter now. Just find what needs to be found, look, look, look everywhere, then out and away and find the Coven._

A book? Some arcane fount of knowledge that will help them defeat the Great Machine?

It just about _has _to be. There's not much else in the room.

Over there. 6 limps along shelves around the edge of the room, averting his eyes from his dead creator. The near-skeleton still frightens the stitchpunk, even after all the trips he's made to the Source, and the present circumstances don't help. Half the Scientist's house was destroyed by a bomb in the War of the Machines long ago, and wind whistles through the derelict house constantly. Wind that might mask the slithering of segmented armor plates, or the spinning of blades in a monstrous iron set of jaws...

At times like this, 6 is almost glad for the pain – both in his foot and in his head. It helps to drive out the fear, agony eating away at his mind until there's no room left for him to remember the things he's seen or wonder how long it will be til the Burrowing Machine catches him for good. He used to sneak around the outside of the house to get to the other side of the Source or climb through the rafters for fear he'd see the Scientist stir and sit up from where he lay on the floor, paternal love swimming in his decomposing eyes, and reach for 6 – but 6 has gone through enough now that he shouldn't need to bother that now. He doesn't. The stitchpunk leans heavily on his wood-splinter-staff, grimacing at every step, and slowly hobbles around the shelves to the desk at the room's far end. The Scientist's body stays exactly where it is, a fallen king in his tomb.

The book is surprisingly drab, a thick slab of uneven paper wedged between red leather covers. 6 approaches it slowly, carefully, scampering from stack of paper to stack of paper with his walking stick splayed in front of him. The book must hold _some_ of the answers – he thinks – he hopes – He needs answers, and quickly. Things are becoming far, far too complicated much too fast, and –

More visions, forcing themselves over his surroundings and clawing their way into his head. The Metal People, only this time there is fire. 0 running from the creatures, slipping and falling, only this time there is something _wrong_ with his arm.

The Metal People again, and a Seeker, and the Coven, and the Man with Two Heads and the Burrowing Machine and –

something huge moving back in the darkness, fire billowing out of a hand...

6 trips over the cover of the book and goes sprawling. Crawling along the desk, grabbing his walking stick, he heaves himself up. He'd never seen the book before – the Scientist had never mentioned it – but it sits in the middle of the desk, and on its cover is carved the symbol of the trisected circle.

6 still isn't sure what it means, but it has something to do – _had_ something to do – with the Source. All the threads of Time had tied the two together – and even now that the Source is gone, the circle symbol still shines brightly. It comes up in nearly every pattern, perhaps a little further away than it was before, but there nonetheless.

Is it still important, then? 6 wonders. In the background? He wishes somebody knew. Hands trembling, he heaves the book's cover open, leaving a long trail of ink down the side. The book is filled with pictures and pasted-in articles. 6 flips through schematics for the Great Machine, preliminary stitchpunk designs –

Stop. _What was that?_

Shaking, 6 flips back pages. He hadn't seen – it couldn't have been –

No. Just a propoganda poster – _Victory Demands Sacrifice._

The book segues into lines of scribbled notes, all marked with a date. The Scientist's journal? The striped stitchpunk flips towards the book's end, where sketches of stitchpunks become more and more commonplace. Something will be here.

A small envelope slips out of the back of the book and glides onto the table. 6 flips it over.

His name is scrawled on the back. 6 tears it open and pulls out a note.

_9, my son,_ it begins.

9?

6 glares at the envelope and very slowly turns it right-side-up. Of _course _it's for 9. He should reseal the envelope and take it with him to go looking for the Coven again.

The small stitchpunk unfolds the letter again and continues reading.

_9, my son,_

_I am so glad that you made it back here. By now you will probably have met my first creation – I have set devices around this journal to hide it unless the Great Machine is once again active, in fact._

_This is a letter of warning, my last creation – stay away from the Machine. Stay away from anywhere it sends its creatures. With any luck, it might not even know you exist._

_I thought I could fix the world and save it from warmongers, but in the end they turned out to be too powerful. They are the ones who turned my creation against us all. It is not the Machine's fault that it has done what it has done, 9. Remember that, above all. Remind it of that, if all else fails and it finds you. It may have destroyed our world, but – do not hate it. I do not._

_I hope you will have a happier life than I._

_-Father_

6 stuffs the note in a back pouch. That helps – marginally. Where to look next?

The rain has begun again, a light drizzle. It lulls 6 as he searches through the papers. His head slumps forwards.

_pitterpatterpitterpatterwhooooopitterpatterwshhhh_

The wind blows through the house, a wet, damp wind. 6 leafs through pictures of the Scientist's family and wonders if anything here will help them, when all is said and done.

_pitterwshhpatterpitterscrchhhpatterwooooooshhrakap itterpitter_

6 is so numb, and so tired, and so agonized by this point that fear does not automatically register. He scrambles down to a gap in the floorboards, careful to avoid passing in front of the window, and waits.

_pitter_scrape_patter_scrchhhh_whoooo_rakarakaraka_pitterpatterpatter_chunk_chunk_chunkCHUNK

The windowframe remains empty for a second, then an armored eye slides into view. It casts about the abandoned room – 6, directly under the window, goes unnoticed.

_No sense of style,_ is all 6 can think. _Every time. Every time it catches up with me, it _always_ puts an eye into view first. One of these days I'll stab it – grab my walking stick, lift it, bring it down, eye breaks, shatter, like that, scream goes the machine, drive the walking stick in deeper, oil spurts out of its head, yes, and it _dies. _We'll see how_ that_ feels. And it's noisy. Noisy, too. Knock on wood. Knock. Knock, knock. Who's there?_

6 looks up nervously, waiting for the Burrowing Machine to defy his assessment of it and gobble him up. Instead, it taps its eye against the glass, looks around again, and grunts stupidly.

The little stitchpunk slips out of the crack in the floorboards. He is below the house now – the boards make a low ceiling above him and _there, _over there to the left, he can see the rest of the Burrowing Machine curled up. 6 crawls to the other side of the house, dragging his injured leg behind him. He glances behind him every few feet, but the Burrowing Machine is still inspecting the house. The stitchpunk hauls himself up on the far side of the house in a cold grey drizzle and half-runs, half-limps, off into the Dead City as fast as he can.

• • • •

With a _tinkle _of broken glass, the Burrowing Machine breaks the window of the room and sniffs the air expectantly. Where was its prey hiding? Its scent lingered in the air everywhere – around that desk, over the bookshelves...

The Burrowing Machine forces its ironclad head through the windowframe and casts around the room. It sniffs, and mechanics in its head analyze the scent's freshness and map out a path of where the stitchpunk traveled. The Burrowing Machine's prey entered at this very window, and travelled around the bookshelves lining the room's edge. It stopped at the desk in the corner, in front of the thick red book, and then worked its way down to the ground and...

The great metal wyrm stares at a section of floor where two warping floorboards have created a perfect stitchpunk-sized escape tunnel.

A roar shakes the old house, then another, then another. The Burrowing Machine crashes through the window, the sawblades in its mouth spinning to life, and tears through the floor like so much wet cardboard. Looping around itself, it demolishes the old house's roof. The Scientist, and all his books, and all his inventions, are ground up into dust to be blown through the Dead City.

The raging machine burrows into the earth below the house, spraying up clots of muddy earth. Its riveted tail slams into walls with the force of a train, pulverizing doors, shaking foundations. With one last grating screech, the Burrowing Machine shreds the wall, and the building collapses in a cacophony of bricks.

In the silence that follows, the monster raises its great iron head from the wreckage and looks down on the ruins it has created. For the first time in its life, it faces a dilemma – the scent of its prey is so strong here that any trail it might have left escaping is virtually undiscoverable. If it chases the stitchpunk into the city, there is the risk that the creature might have hidden somewhere in the house's wreckage, not to mention the fact that the Burrowing Machine cannot track by smell and will have to rely on sight alone. But on the other hand, every minute it spends searching the wreck means its prey, if it escaped from the house, gets further and further away.

If the great iron wyrm could have huffed, it would have done so. Carefully maneuvering the smaller arms and scissors in its mouth, it reaches down, lifts a half-destroyed floorboard, and tosses it out of the way. Another. There are too many nooks and crannies for a creature as small as its prey to hide in.

But if it takes the Burrowing Machine years, it will find and kill the stitchpunk.

Past the buildings of the Dead City, the first faint fingers of dawn begin to lap at the horizon.

• • • •

6 finds shelter from the rain under the disk of an old record player. He sits on the old turntable with the record propped on his head, watching the ground turn to mud and trickle away.

The Factory blazes in the darkness on the near side of the City, lights glaring from windows and smokestacks and clouds of Seekers flying in formation over the Machine's fortress. If the Great Machine has enough resources to create something the size of the Burrowing Machine, 6 wonders, what else might it build? Time, as usual, refuses to cooperate, and 6 feels a glimmer of worry.

Reaching back with dripping fingers, he feels the outline of 9's letter in his pack. He will check the Library next, or – might they have gone to the rebel's hideout? One of the two. He will check at daybreak. He feels tired now, so tired – surely it wouldn't hurt to have a little rest...

He dares not play the phonograph record, so close to the Factory and the Machine's creatures, but the lyrics are printed on the bottom and he whispers them to himself. "Somewhere. Over the rainbow. Bluebirds fly...why can't I."

6 shuffles around on the record player until he is lying down, as the night sky imperceptibly fades to gray. If things don't make sense now, they will all become clear in the morning. And he'll find the Coven, and they'll have figured out some way to stop the Great Machine. And life will go back to the way it was.

_And maybe they'll find a way to bring back civilization, _thinks 6, _and resurrect 8..._ He has to sleep. His brain's turned to acid, thoughts flailing around in it before dissolving. Everything will be better in the morning.

It is only as he is falling asleep that 6 notices the lights on the horizon, lights slowly growing larger. He watches them in a peaceful stupor, vision darkening. Two red lights, one over the other, and two smaller white lights between them. They seem oddly familiar. Maybe they are coming to help him, lurching towards him like that. Maybe they are...

He can't remember where he's seen them before. He's so tired.

As the lights brighten and a form begins to become visible behind them, 6's vision darkens and he slips into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

A/N: O_O

No spoilers. I'll try for an update somewhere in the next three weeks.


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